How long does it take you to decide?

[DannyD]

How long does it take you to decide if a run is profitable or not? In the short time I've been back, I've made 2 oops on saying yes & if I'd taken 5 more minutes I would have turned them down.

I guess they were both my fault for not getting the information right. One specifically was a different pick up time than I had thought. No biggie there. The other one though, was 200 less paid miles than google maps said the trip would take. I just said yes when they told me the milage.

I lucked out in that the 2nd run didn't happen. It still doesn't change that I said yes to a 950 mile run that was only gonna be paid for 750. Then factor in I had to be back by Sat so I couldn't really wait to long for anything else & I'd most likely be going almost 2000 miles for 750 paid.

Is it reasonable to take 5 minutes to map it out & see if the miles are actually what they say they are? I tend to give quick answers.. mostly yes unless I've specified I need to stay local. I have other work on weekends so can't go to far out on Fridays.

What is your process when you're offered a run? And how long does it take you to do this?

 

[Turtle]

For most loads, a matter of seconds is all it takes. A quick glance at when it picks up, when it delivers, how many miles, pay rate, and it's usually an easy YES or NO. That's for most loads. Other loads, going to strange places or longer loads, they take a little more time to go over, take a look at the routing, time-of-day that you're likely to be in a given place (passing through greater NY at 5PM versus 1AM), where it takes you. On any unusual or longer loads, 5-10 minutes is plenty.

As for that load paying 200 miles less than Google Maps says it runs, there are other routing options other than Google Maps. I've had runs with miles that Garmin, Streets and Trips, Google Maps and Mapquest all disagreed with by a long shot, and they were all about the same as each other. Then PC Miler Practical Routing comes along and there ya go, them's the miles in the load offer.

 

[hondaking38]

been ar it 4 years and still make mistakes that are costly..monday got a load offer to pennsylvania was sitting in charlotte nc accepted the load then notinced it picks up in Raymond VA 175 miles away...been peeved about it ever since...if they call before the text comes thru its usually a bad load....

 

[Zoli]

The last two times when I asked dispatch (TriStates) for couple minutes the answer was, 'I can't I want the answer now". So I said YES. Was not the right answer . 5 min is ok.

 

[moose]

I met a Panther team on my second Expediting week ,
they gave me a sheet with 7 question i needed to answer for my self before excepting a load offer .
after like 3 loads it took me less then one minute to answer the 7 , ans was very quick ever since ,
i will look it up when it stop raining ...

 

[fastman_1]

When I was with PTL it took just a few seconds since I was paid by the mile, The last Company I was with paid a % and that took a few minutes to figure out the miles against thew cost.

 

[DannyD]

These answers hit on exactly what I was getting at. Thanx.
Turtle, agree on most of the runs being pretty easy decisions. The two I botched were longer runs. Also, the recent one I would have had to go almost 1000 miles in 16 hours. I would haven't even come close to being on time.

I could have still taken the run, except rather than just saying yes to what was offered I would have said: ok, this run is actually closer to 950 miles & I won't be able to make it in 16 hours. And then see what they say.

I can feel for the ones who quickly regret accepting one. I guess we've all been there. That's sort of why I asked this Q, so I could at least have that oops feeling a few less times. Hopefully others who've done that could learn something too.

Thanx all.

 

[Scuba]

When i am waiting on a load offer i have my pc miler open with were i am already typed in then all i have to do is enter the zip coeds of the pu and drop and i will know my miles and if there are any toll roads it takes less than a min to look at the run. And while i am doing that i am asking dispatch the important questions like load count in the area where i am going trucks that are there how many are on the way in that will be there before me etc it all takes less than 5 mins. Most snap calls have screwed me because all i saw was the miles. Unlike a van if i go into a low load area it can take most of what i made on the run just to get back to a good area.

 

[Dakota]

How expensive is PC Miler? I have noticed that my mileage is always more then what Ceva gives me and they use PC miler.
does PC route you on roads or just a straight line from Zip to Zip?

 

[FIS53]

One of the companies I worked for used to charge pretty well. Then for several runs they suddenly had a lower price. We finally figured it out. The customer told them the price was too high so they told the mapping software to route by the shortest route and priced according to that. But we used the main roads as it was faster time wise but more miles.
Rob

 

[lpgregory]

I thought this might help. It's an excel workbook with two sheets. The first sheet is titled Analize and is a modified version of the one found on OIDA's web site and the second one is Decide that I wrote to import data from Analize and you put your load offer data in it to make a quick accept / decline decision. The more accurate your data is on both sheets the better the decision will be. Hope this will be of some help. I'm sure there are other factors that have to be weighed but this will be another tool to help.

Lynnie G.

View attachment Cost Analysis Worksheet.zip

 

[Moot]

PCmiler gives route options; shortest, fastest and practical. When I was with Con-Way most loads were based on PCmiler practical route.

Panther uses various methods to calculate miles depending on the customer and day of the week. I double check the mileage with PCmiler to make sure it is in the ballpark, then I check for shorter routes.

 

[pelicn]

When a load offer comes in we put the addresses in Streets and Trips and check the total miles. We have a spreadsheet that we've set up to calculate our DH miles, paid miles, .fsc and any extra pay that might be involved. We also look at where the load is going (if we have to DH back out). If the numbers work we accept, if they don't, then we turn it down. This method has saved us many times from accepting the load that "sounds" good. It usually only takes a few minutes to do all of this. If dispatch calls pressing for an answer, we tell them that when we figure out our numbers we'll give them an answer.

 

[layoutshooter]

We can normally "eyeball" a load offer and decide quickly. Sometimes we have to pull out the map book or calculator to do a bit more research. One thing for sure, if you DON"T "OPPS" every now and then you might be a bit too picky on which runs to take or not. "OOPSING" is a part of this business and being human.