In Steve's thread, someone asked what his profit loss was. When calculated strictly as a Motor Carrier, here's a simplified versin of what mine looked like for two trucks pulling steps and DD's in the NEast.

My apologies for the terrible format....Excel doesn't seem to paste well. Each line represents a different load. Columns are as follows from left to right; dead miles to pickup, loaded miles, dead miles from delivery to yard, all miles, rate per loaded mile, rate for all miles, profit on the load.

Cost is $1.33/mile including driver. Tolls and OD permits are not in here so the $7100 is actually a bit less.

IMO, the loaded mile rate was quite good but we still only profited $7100 on 15,000 miles.....$28,000/year to the corp annualized. February is looking much better.

It should be noted that most of these are backhauls only (we are a private carrier for the headhaul). Once you figure that we would otherwise be coming home empty, these beackhauls added $15,000 to the bottom line for Q1....not $7,100.

What I see:
1. Dead miles kill.
2. Once you pay the driver, there isn't much left.
3. These are good rates from SD's and DD's. Don't know how anybody survives with vans.
4. Stay out of trucking. It ain't worth the risk.




NOVEMBER-DECEMBER-JANUARY
133 300 204 637 2.67 1.26 -47.18
90 493 171 754 2.08 1.36 20.02
75 493 171 739 2.08 1.38 39.97
75 493 171 739 2.08 1.38 39.97
25 265 40 330 2.26 1.82 161.10
0 255 50 305 1.96 1.64 94.35
75 493 171 739 2.08 1.38 39.97
75 493 171 739 2.08 1.38 39.97
75 493 171 739 2.08 1.38 39.97
75 493 171 739 2.08 1.38 39.97
21 405 100 526 2.59 2.00 350.42
51 433 180 664 2.42 1.58 166.88
55 495 125 675 3.02 2.22 598.25
480 507 0 987 4.73 2.43 1,087.29
570 507 0 1077 4.64 2.18 917.59
475 507 101 1083 4.64 2.17 909.61
475 507 101 1083 4.64 2.17 909.61
570 507 101 1178 4.64 1.99 783.26
570 507 101 1178 4.64 1.99 783.26
20 215 40 275 2.49 1.95 169.25

7,143.53

FEBRUARY
25 505 10 540 3.17 2.96 881.80
225 244 200 669 3.69 1.35 10.23
100 820 300 1220 2.96 1.99 802.40
106 466 152 724 5.17 3.32 1,444.08
100 482 152 734 4.82 3.1 1,347.78

4,486.29

The right deal, along with good negotiation skills it can be done with any equipment. My dry van operation is very profitable, my customer, no brokers in the middle, no dead head miles, trips paid on a round trip basis. It's all in the deal you can work out.

I have known a few who pull vans and do very well. Like btinc said, it is all in what you negotiate. Just because a load is offered at a cheap rate doesn't mean that you have to take it at that rate or something better can't be negotiated.

rank, thanks for posting those numbers.
I thought this thread would take off and was looking forward to some more opinions but.....oh well.

Also let me first say, I have a lot of respect for your opinions and knowledge of the business.

With that said, I have to disagree with the warning to stay away from trucking if your only going to post back haul numbers to back it up. I suspect with with your head haul that you must do well enough to stay in trucking.

Maybe you meant it's hard to just run off the boards and be successful?

Every business is tough because of competition, but if you find a few good customers like I have in construction it's a little easier.

If I had to compete with every Tom, Dick, and Harry it would be really hard to make any money in my business but I don't have too.
8)

Yes that's correct Rosty. We've been a private carrier since '92 hauling our own product on the head haul so it's really quite difficult to breakdown the trucking portion of it. The backhauls have only started recently.

I didn't mean to imply that one cannot make money in trucking. Only that the income is low (when one considers the long hours, capital investment, health risks, business risks and threat to family life). You can make alot more with alot less risk.

Okay rank I see what you mean now.

With you having your own product you can look at the two businesses (whether you keep them separate or not) and get a good picture of what's going on and which one does better.

LOL...and that is why "Backhaul" rates exist. For many years, companies such as Proctor & Gamble, Dow Chemical & Dole, operated their own truck fleets. To limit the empty, there for unpaid mileage, those companies did backhauls. Now they rely on companies such as Swift, JBHunt & USXpress.


WalMart does backhauls..so does FritoLay.

oops....I did use that nasty word in my post. ops: Sorry guys.

rank, you might want to duck as well. :lol:

It's good that Rank does backhauls... simply means that they are looking at the margins.

Aint't no margin in empty.

only to their stores or DC's