Too commonly, truckers must drive back from a job with an empty trailer. These empty miles are impractical, wasteful, and a missed opportunity for profit. Driving with an empty trailer is not a great use of fuel or time. Plus, empty miles contribute to highway congestion, higher shipping costs, and higher pollution levels. Reducing empty miles is better for sustainability, helps truckers make more money, and allows shippers to lower costs. For carriers, a top goal is to reduce empty miles, sometimes referred to as deadhead loads. However, the plan can seem out of reach for many truckers because it requires shipper resources, creativity, and careful planning that are difficult to manage when most of the week is spent on the road. Thankfully, freight brokers are up for the challenge. As logistics and coordination experts, freight brokers can tackle many complex shipping challenges.
In this guide, we highlight ways freight brokers can help reduce empty miles for truckers.
1. Leverage Shipper Relationships
Cultivating professional relationships in the freight industry takes time, experience, effort, and energy. Drawing upon the relationships to coordinate optimal freight loads is an even more enormous task. When truckers work with freight brokers, they do not have to fill up all their spare time hustling and coordinating loads.
Freight brokers already have vetted and strong shipper relationships. On top of extensive industry connections, freight brokers also have insight into the supply chains of shipping partners. This information is critical to matching the needs of shippers with the capabilities, routes, and capacity of truckers. In this way, freight brokers can leverage shipper relationships to minimize Empty miles and improve efficiencies that benefit both truckers and shippers.
2. Leverage Data
Another way freight brokers can help reduce empty miles is by leveraging data and analytics. With advanced tracking, tools, and metrics, freight brokers can identify opportunities to combine lanes, bundle loads, coordinate closed-loop routes, optimize communications, and more. Acting on any of these opportunities can achieve several efficiencies that ultimately reduce empty miles.
3. Arrange Drop-and-Hook Agreements
Another way freight brokers can help reduce Empty miles is to Arrange routes with a shipper or receiver that has return cargo so that the trucker can leave the trailer or container and return with a different trailer or container. This arrangement is called drop-and-hook because a trucker can drop a load and hook up a new one. Drop-and-hook offers many benefits to truckers, and reducing Empty miles is one of them.
4. Find Nearby Loads
It often takes a lot of creativity and problem-solving to reduce Empty miles. Another strategy freight brokers employ to expand the search to look for nearby loads. If a return load is unavailable at the delivery destination, freight brokers can look for loads 10 or 20 miles away, for example. In many cases, it’s preferable to travel 20 miles to pick up a load to haul closer to home than to miss out on the load and drive an empty trailer back.
5. Freight Pooling
A less common but viable way freight brokers can reduce empty miles is to pool freight. Freight pooling moves multiple shipments together in either direction, helping the truck stay full. This approach involves
lots of juggling, which can take time to organize. The upside to freight pooling is that it helps reduce shipping costs and increase driver profits. It is also A great way to be more sustainable.
Become a Freight Broker with First Star Logistics!
If you’re looking to use your problem-solving skills to solve logistics challenges in a successful and supportive work environment, consider becoming a freight broker with First Star Logistics.
First Star Logistics is a unique asset-based global brokerage company with over 60 years of experience. We are looking to expand our brokerage department by hiring enthusiastic individuals wanting a fast-paced career in the logistics industry. We empower you to succeed by allowing you to create your goals and networks and make your own money. Our freight broker training program will enable you to start as a trainee or an experienced broker. Our talented freight brokers enjoy the highest commissions in the industry, weekly pay, proprietary software, a potential sign-on bonus with book of business, 24/7 agent support so you can be as productive as possible, and more customer saturation.
To join the First Star team, apply today.