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ericmoss37

Seasoned Expediter
What percentage of loads do you miss out on if you don't have elite service qualifications and hazmat? My teams don't have either they are in D units and they are lucky to crack 3000 miles. My question is to other fleet owners who have white glove type straight trucks. In your experience how many extra miles a week are we losing out on by not having Haz Mat and Canada? In your experience how much should a regular dry van D unit be doing in a week? Other drivers I have talked to say they are able to squeeze extra money out of disbatchers when they go out of the expediting area. They also say they are able to get paid moves on top of the extra money. For example one guy I talked to said he asks a extra $1200 dollars if he's going to take a run to Denver because you can't get out. Then he waits 24 hours and calls his team for a paid relocation. He said you should be able to do 4000 to 5000 miles a week just running the eastern part of the country.
 
pelicn

pelicn

Veteran Expediter
ericmoss37 said:
What percentage of loads do you miss out on if you don't have elite service qualifications and hazmat? My teams don't have either they are in D units and they are lucky to crack 3000 miles. My question is to other fleet owners who have white glove type straight trucks. In your experience how many extra miles a week are we losing out on by not having Haz Mat and Canada? In your experience how much should a regular dry van D unit be doing in a week? Other drivers I have talked to say they are able to squeeze extra money out of disbatchers when they go out of the expediting area. They also say they are able to get paid moves on top of the extra money. For example one guy I talked to said he asks a extra $1200 dollars if he's going to take a run to Denver because you can't get out. Then he waits 24 hours and calls his team for a paid relocation. He said you should be able to do 4000 to 5000 miles a week just running the eastern part of the country.
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I'm not a fleet owner, but we drive for a fleet owner. We have all the qualifications you can have and we have a reefer and we've not done a 5000 mile week. That's the beauty of Expediting, you don't HAVE to run the wheels off to make good money. I would think that the more qualifications your teams have, the more load offers they would get.
From what you said about talking to that other driver, it sounds like a stretch of the truth. Yes, you might get some extra money for going to a dead area, but if they have another truck that could take it, and the other truck will, they aren't going to pay the extra.
 
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ericmoss37

Seasoned Expediter
Thanks for the reply. It's the little things in this industry that are hard. For example. My team had a first out in Memphis TN with 3 loads a day and 7 trucks. I was debating having them dead to Nashville because I thought they would get loaded faster and the quality of the loads are better. They ended up deciding to stay and they got two load offers going west. They excepted a swap load going 267 miles into the St. Louis area from Mississippi. Now I think back it was a mistake not moving them east into Nashville. It would have been 200 miles of deadhead, but they would be much closer to the freight lanes. I think they are going to have a bad week now that they will end up sitting in St. Louis.
 
Falligator

Falligator

Expert Expediter
If they are in St. Louis, I would dh them to Effingham, Ill or Marshall, ill. In Marshal there is a TRW that does a bit of buisness with Panther. I've gotten loads out of Columbia, MO too.
 
jaminjim

jaminjim

Veteran Expediter
Sounds like you might be a little quick on the trigger. First out on a decent board and your thinking about deadheading them 200 miles to another board? How many miles would you have to drive to make up the fuel and maintenance costs? If you were that nervous to get them moving use the tool that the purple people wish they were allowed to use. Broker loads can work if you put them together right. Saint Louis is not that bad of a board either. Last I saw it was two or three a day.

$1200.00 for a bonus to Denver, won't happen very often, most likely once the guy saw your eyes widen he went on and on, can you get a bonus? sure rarely, will it be the home run that he was talking about.

You will get more loads if your drivers can and will go to Canada, same thing for having Hazmat.
 
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ericmoss37

Seasoned Expediter
They ended up south of the St. Louis board by about 100 miles. It says that there are two loads a day going out. I hope business picks up soon because I am going to find myself with three empty trucks. They need to at least make $600 dollars a week or more. I am thinking about reorganizing and have them run just the ohio valley area. It seems it does not take more then a hour for a team to get loaded in Ohio. They could run that state all week long and be home on the weekend for the same or better money.
 
Jefferson3000

Jefferson3000

Expert Expediter
What's wrong with St. Louis? I think the biggest thing you will face is making sure that, while in St. Louis, they are actualy appearing on the St. Louis board and not somewhere off down the road.
 
CharlesD

CharlesD

Expert Expediter
St. Louis isn't so bad. That TRW in Marshall can be a gold mine at times too. They send so much stuff out of there that Panther can't even cover all of it and they end up brokering some out. I've done quite a few loads out of that TRW plant. Heck, one time I ended up with a round trip from there to the TRW in Fenton, MI and then by the time I got to Fenton, MI they had one out of that plant going back to Marshall. That was a good couple days.
 
davekc

davekc

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Fleet Owner
I would agree. Saint Louis is usually pretty busy.

On a side note, I don't think I would have DH'ed from Memphis to Nashville. That could turn into the luck of getting to Nashville and get offered a load back to Memphis. Have to agree with the others on that one unless you were deep in a lot of trucks and don't broker anything.
 
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mcbride

mcbride

Veteran Expediter
Charter Member
charlee said:
between hazmat and canada about 34% of loads that panther gets.



-charlotte
Click to expand...

Wow. That seems like a lot.

BTW, Eric, in my opinion, you can't compare FedEx White Glove with Panther Elite...Different rules/standards...etc.between the two companies.

Added:

who have white glove type straight trucks.
Click to expand...
I only added the statement about differences, because when initially reading your post, I did not know if you were talking to a FedEx White Glove truck...or a Panther Elite...or comparing them.
 
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jaminjim

jaminjim

Veteran Expediter
I don't think he was trying to compare the two, just asking how many more "Load opportunities" he could have.

And you sure are right about being different PII allows people into there fleet because it's growing while at the same time The fed seems to be contracting. :)
 
mcbride

mcbride

Veteran Expediter
Charter Member
And you sure are right about being different PII allows people into there fleet because it's growing while at the same time The fed seems to be contracting. :)
Click to expand...

I am not sure what this means but I DO know that there are huge differences in policy and procedures between Panther and FedEx. :)
 
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ericmoss37

Seasoned Expediter
No I was not comparing FedEx with Panther Elite. I do have respect for FedEx because I have four FedEx Ground routes, but I did not want to have contracts with two FedEx divisions in case I had a fall out with one.

Just an update they were south of St. Louis in Scott City where they dropped the swap load off. They were loaded in less then a hour going 789 miles to Buffallo NY. They need to get back to Seville for Thursday to pick up truck number three and trade theirs with a driver in class. I got them a Century with a Refer and lift gate. It's a upgrade from the FL-70 they have been driving.
 
mcbride

mcbride

Veteran Expediter
Charter Member
Yup, I figured that out after I posted originally, then I tried to explain and made my post even more confusing. :rolleyes:


I really was only going to comment on the 34% figure, which still seems like a big percentage to me.

Rather than delete my post, I chose to try to “make it” make sense. I failed. :rolleyes:
 
davekc

davekc

Senior Moderator
Staff member
Fleet Owner
I would question the 34 percent number. 15 is probably more realistic. If it was 34 percent, where are all these trucks in Canada? There are trucks, but no large numbers that I see.
Then again, they may be counting the Elite loads as well.
 
ATeam

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
The 15% number I gave is for our CR-unit. Within FedEx Custom Critical, the number will vary, perhaps widely, among truck type (dry box or reefer) and driver credentials.
 
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