--- title: What Empty Miles Cost a 50-Truck Fleet Before Anyone Adds Them Up description: Deadhead and out-of-route miles can cost a 50-truck fleet more than $230,000 a year in fuel alone. Here is how to run the numbers on your own operation. image: https://marketing.magnustech.com/hubfs/Magnus_CutScale_Header2.jpg --- [![Magnus Technologies](https://marketing.magnustech.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/Magnus_Technologies_2024/images/Magnus_logo_black.svg "Magnus Technologies")](https://magnustech.com/) - [Magnus Platform](https://magnustech.com/magnus-platform/) - [Driver App](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/) - [Quick Access to Shipment Details](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#QuickAccesstoShipmentDetails) - [Mobile Document Management](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#MobileDocumentManagement) - [Precise Load Tracing](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#PreciseLoadTracking) - [Clear Dispatch Communication](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#ClearDispatchCommunication) - [Instant Status Updates](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#InstantStatusUpdates) - [Markets We Serve](https://magnustech.com/magnus-platform/#) - [Finished Vehicle](https://magnustech.com/finished-vehicle/) - [Truckload](https://magnustech.com/truckload/) - [Specialty Freight](https://magnustech.com/specialty-freight/) - [Dry Van](https://magnustech.com/dry-van/) - [Flatbed](https://magnustech.com/flatbed/) - [Bulk](https://magnustech.com/bulk/) - [Refrigerated](https://magnustech.com/refrigerated/) - [Brokerage](https://magnustech.com/brokerage/) - [Dedicated Freight](https://magnustech.com/dedicated-freight/) - [Pricing](https://magnustech.com/pricing/) - [Integrations](https://magnustech.com/integrations/) - [ELD](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#Eld) - [ERP/Platforms](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#ErpPlatforms) - [Fuel/Driver Credit Card](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#FuelDriverCreditCard) - [Financial](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#Financial) - [Trading Partners](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#TradingPartners) - [Accounting & Payroll](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#AccountingPayroll) - [Resources](https://magnustech.com/resources/) - [Guides](https://magnustech.com/guides/) - [Case Studies](https://magnustech.com/case-studies/) - [Blog](https://marketing.magnustech.com/blog?_gl=1*1hicz8d*_gcl_au*MTE4MzI3NzQ0Mi4xNzIzNDYwMjYz*_ga*MTg3NDg4MTc4My4xNzIzNDYwMjYz*_ga_M3C0ZWPKH4*MTcyNTAxODIyMS4zMC4wLjE3MjUwMTgyMjEuNjAuMC4w) - [Infographics](https://magnustech.com/infographics/) - [Newsroom](https://magnustech.com/newsroom/) - [About Us](https://magnustech.com/about/) - [Careers](https://magnustech.com/careers/) [Let’s Talk](https://magnustech.com/contact/) - [Magnus Platform](https://magnustech.com/magnus-platform/) - [Driver App](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/) - [Quick Access to Shipment Details](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#QuickAccesstoShipmentDetails) - [Mobile Document Management](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#MobileDocumentManagement) - [Precise Load Tracing](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#PreciseLoadTracking) - [Clear Dispatch Communication](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#ClearDispatchCommunication) - [Instant Status Updates](https://magnustech.com/driver-app/#InstantStatusUpdates) - [Markets We Serve](https://magnustech.com/magnus-platform/#) - [Finished Vehicle](https://magnustech.com/finished-vehicle/) - [Truckload](https://magnustech.com/truckload/) - [Specialty Freight](https://magnustech.com/specialty-freight/) - [Dry Van](https://magnustech.com/dry-van/) - [Flatbed](https://magnustech.com/flatbed/) - [Bulk](https://magnustech.com/bulk/) - [Refrigerated](https://magnustech.com/refrigerated/) - [Brokerage](https://magnustech.com/brokerage/) - [Dedicated Freight](https://magnustech.com/dedicated-freight/) - [Pricing](https://magnustech.com/pricing/) - [Integrations](https://magnustech.com/integrations/) - [ELD](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#Eld) - [ERP/Platforms](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#ErpPlatforms) - [Fuel/Driver Credit Card](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#FuelDriverCreditCard) - [Financial](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#Financial) - [Trading Partners](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#TradingPartners) - [Accounting & Payroll](https://magnustech.com/integrations/#AccountingPayroll) - [Resources](https://magnustech.com/resources/) - [Guides](https://magnustech.com/guides/) - [Case Studies](https://magnustech.com/case-studies/) - [Blog](https://marketing.magnustech.com/blog?_gl=1*1hicz8d*_gcl_au*MTE4MzI3NzQ0Mi4xNzIzNDYwMjYz*_ga*MTg3NDg4MTc4My4xNzIzNDYwMjYz*_ga_M3C0ZWPKH4*MTcyNTAxODIyMS4zMC4wLjE3MjUwMTgyMjEuNjAuMC4w) - [Infographics](https://magnustech.com/infographics/) - [Newsroom](https://magnustech.com/newsroom/) - [About Us](https://magnustech.com/about/) - [Careers](https://magnustech.com/careers/) # Magnus Blog # What Empty Miles Cost a 50-Truck Fleet Before Anyone Adds Them Up A truck delivers in Joliet on Tuesday afternoon, and its next pickup is 140 miles away in Fort Wayne. Dispatch books it, the driver runs it empty, the fuel card covers it, and the settlement sheet pays for it. By Friday, those miles have become part of the week's totals, but no report in the building shows them as a single line with a dollar value next to it. That load happens dozens of times a week across a 50-truck fleet, and most owners have a rough sense that it adds up. Very few have the actual number. ### **Capital decisions already have rules** Truck replacement follows a discipline most fleets take seriously. If the warranty runs out at 500,000 miles, the plan is to trade around 400,000. Repair cost per unit, downtime, remaining warranty, and total mileage all get reviewed before anyone signs for a new tractor. A truck that keeps landing in the shop will get replaced whatever else is going on in the business, and it should. The operating costs surrounding those trucks rarely get the same scrutiny. Fuel, tires, and driver pay usually show up clearly in the books when a fleet keeps good records. Deadhead and out-of-route miles usually don't, because they sit inside fuel spend and driver pay instead of standing on their own. ### **The math on deadhead** Take a 50-truck fleet averaging 5.5 miles per gallon, with diesel at roughly $5.45 a gallon. If that fleet could cut 10,000 empty miles a month, it would save about 1,818 gallons of fuel. At current prices, that works out to around $9,900 a month, or close to $119,000 a year. Ten thousand miles across 50 trucks comes to 200 miles per truck per month, a low figure for most operations. Treat it as a floor. That number also covers fuel only. It does not include driver pay on empty miles, tire wear, or the maintenance intervals those miles pull forward. ### **Out-of-route miles add the same cost again** Out-of-route miles follow the same arithmetic. A driver takes a different route than the one dispatched, detours for a preferred fuel stop, or gets routed around a closure, and the truck burns fuel on miles nobody planned or billed. Cutting 10,000 out-of-route miles a month on the same fleet saves another $9,900 a month, or roughly $119,000 a year. Put deadhead and out-of-route together and the fuel alone comes to about $238,000 a year, from a starting assumption we already consider conservative. On a recent call with a fleet in this size range, out-of-route miles turned out to be one of the largest costs they had no way to track. ### **You can run this yourself, up to a point** The formula above needs three inputs: miles, fuel economy, and fuel price. Most fleets can pull fuel economy and fuel price from their fuel card reports this afternoon. The miles are where it gets harder. A TMS will usually give a somewhat accurate deadhead figure, but it often won't match what the general ledger says the operation spent. The same gap shows up between TMS earnings and what QuickBooks reports as profit. Out-of-route miles require comparing dispatched miles against actual miles driven, and that comparison usually means pulling data from the TMS and the ELD separately and lining them up by hand. So the math takes five minutes, while finding numbers you trust enough to plug into it can take much longer. ### **"We already track that in our TMS"** Many fleets do track some of this. The better question is how, and whether two systems agree on the answer. Fuel surcharge is the first place to check. The question is whether it gets applied the same way on every load, or whether it depends on who built the rate confirmation. Deadhead comes next, since the figure in the TMS and the figure you get from actual miles driven are often different. Dwell and detention time follow, because detention only turns into revenue when someone documents it and bills it. Accessorial charges run through all of it. Rates vary from one location to another, and teams apply them inconsistently. Some operations still review every load by hand to catch accessorials that were missed, which means the back office is recovering revenue one load file at a time. Beyond the miles, three more costs sit in the same blind spot: back-office hours spent on work a system could handle, overlapping software that creates its own risk, and the patchwork of EDI, mobile, and invoicing tools held together by another vendor. Each of those requires connecting data that currently lives in separate places, which is why most fleets never get a clean number on them. ### **Where the gap shows up** Most fleets in the 50 to 200 truck range can tell you, to the mile, when a tractor is due for trade. Far fewer can tell you what that same tractor spent last quarter driving empty. The first number drives a six-figure decision every few years, while the second one is spent every week without a line on the report. ### **5 Numbers to Pull Before You Buy Another Truck** ##### Deadhead and out-of-route miles are two of them. The other three live across your TMS, your accounting system, and the tools in between. The guide shows where to find each number and where the self-audit usually stops. [Get the Guide](https://marketing.magnustech.com/hubfs/5%20Numbers%20to%20Pull%20Before%20You%20Buy%20Another%20Truck-1.pdf) ### Like this article? Pass it on. 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