Fleet Backhaul Management - Kuebix

What You Need to Do to Make Fleet Backhaul Management Easy

/in , , , , , /by

Fleet backhaul management is a notoriously difficult task that fleet owners and operators are all too familiar with. When a truck returns from making a delivery it is usually empty. This is known as “driving empty” or “empty miles.” Even though there is no freight on the trailer, drivers still need to be paid, fuel is used up and trucks depreciate in value. The expense of empty miles are usually calculated into the freight rate ahead of time, but this capacity still presents an opportunity for fleet owners to generate additional revenue for direct bottom-line impact.

Instead of having fleet assets return empty, finding freight to haul on the return trip can create a win-win situation for both the shipper and the fleet owner. Shippers find a new, valuable source of capacity and fleets generate bottom-line revenue. So why has it been so hard up until now to manage fleet backhauls?

Why Traditional Fleet Backhaul Management is So Difficult

Managing a fleet is difficult enough without finding freight to carry on the return trip. When companies do try to generate some additional revenue by filling empty backhaul miles, they can find themselves wasting more time sourcing opportunities than actually moving freight.

Loads Must Meet Certain Parameters

The process of finding available freight is more complicated than simply finding freight that needs to move in the opposite direction the original delivery is headed. There are many other parameters that need to be considered too. Things like Haz-Mat, food-grade and temp control all need to be taken into account. Other parameters like noise regulation or truck size in neighborhoods can also make a difference between a good opportunity and an impossible one.

For example, a truckload order of refrigerated groceries leaves York, PA heading to New York City. After it leaves from New York, the truck typically drives back to York, PA with an empty trailer. The fleet owner looks for a food-grade backhaul opportunity along this route. If they’re lucky, the fleet owner might find a load that needs to travel from Allentown to Harrisburg or even directly back to York. This would reduce the total number of empty miles driven.

Finding Opportunities and Getting Paid Can Be Challenging

This scenario adds bottom-line revenue for the company. But finding that opportunity is easier said than done. It can take an entire team of logistics professionals to source and secure that backhaul opportunity. After the opportunity has been successfully matched with the truck type and other delivery parameters, the fleet still needs a way to invoice for its work and get paid. Doing one-off deliveries for a variety of shippers can be a headache for everyone involved.

Since the process of finding, booking and getting paid for backhaul freight is so difficult and time-consuming, it’s no wonder that many fleet owners decide not to look for backhaul opportunities and stick to their everyday fleet management.

How to Make Fleet Backhaul Management Easy

The answer is to tap into a community.

Fleet backhaul management becomes easy when fleets find and connect with an existing community of shippers and brokers looking for capacity. Instead of individually sourcing loads on a one-by-one basis, fleets instead have a single source to work through. Programs like Kuebix FleetMAX are giving fleets an easy way to expose their available capacity to thousands of shippers while at the same time streamlining the AR/AP process.

Why Kuebix FleetMAX is a Game Changer

With FleetMAX, Kuebix’s technology digitally matches fleet capacity with freight to obtain consistent and repetitive external backhauls to offset empty miles, add revenue to fleet operations, and provide shippers/brokers a new source of trusted capacity.

Kuebix also overcomes the administrative obstacle of charging the shipper and collecting the funds. With FleetMAX, all of the financials and settlements are managed through one of the most trusted names in the industry, Estes Truckload Management, relieving private fleets of these administrative challenges.

After a fleet joins the network through FleetMAX, their open capacity becomes available to Kuebix’s connected shipping community which includes thousands of shippers and brokers looking for capacity. For fleets, this means they can focus on picking up and delivering orders, not chasing opportunities or managing individual contracts with shippers.

Click here to learn more about getting started managing your fleet backhauls with FleetMAX!

boeing 737 kuebix Kuebix

One Man’s Solo-Trip on a Boeing 737 is Really Additional Backhaul Revenue

/in , , /by

On March 16th, Skirmantas Strimaitis discovered he was the lone passenger on a Boeing 737-800 with a seating capacity of 189 people headed from Vilnius, Lithuania to Bergamo, Italy. When tour operator company Novaturas realized the flight they had chartered earlier for guests was going to fly back empty, they decided to put one-way tickets on sale in an attempt to generate additional profit on a trip they had to take regardless. This process is one commonly referred to in the supply chain industry as filling backhaul miles, which has become vital to the success of supply chains worldwide.

Courtesy Skirmantas Strimaitis

How Can This Concept Help Companies?

Whether freight is moving via flight, drive, or boat ride, all modes of transportation have one thing in common- the trip back. It has to happen, so why not utilize it? Through filling their backhaul miles with additional freight, fleets are largely improving their business. Delivering additional freight on a trip that they had to take anyways is generating additional revenue and reducing the amount of gas waste simultaneously. Having truck drivers deliver at a time where they have to commute regardless helps lower the cost of labor and maintenance necessary for the fleet to run smoothly.

Why Aren’t More People Doing it?

It may seem puzzling that filling backhaul miles isn’t common procedure if it is as helpful as it sounds. This is largely due to the fact that organizing and managing backhauls has proven to be time-consuming and oftentimes expensive. There are limitations as to how far and for how long drivers can be on the roads, which often makes it difficult to find feasible opportunities to execute backhauls in the first place. Routes that are already being driven face even more challenges because they are operating steadily and adding a backhaul can sometimes seem to be impossible based on location.

What Do We Do?

The most efficient and effective way to start filling backhaul miles is to utilize technology. Doing so allows companies to work even more efficiently and removes some of the pressure from the process. For example, Kuebix created FleetMAX, which is a program that matches backhaul capacity with freight to consistently reduce the number of empty miles and make the most of each trip. It simplifies the process of scrambling to find freight and provides real-time visibility into routes that have been planned and the locations and movement of freight. Letting a program like FleetMAX do the heavy lifting in a process as involved as filling backhaul capacity makes it a much more feasible task for all supply chains.

Kuebix FleetMAX

A Win-Win for Fleet Owners and Shippers

/in , /by

Right now in the industry there are approximately 10 orders to ship for every available truck. Conversely, there’s a large portion of private fleets that are running their assets with a significant amount of empty backhaul miles. At Kuebix, we don’t think it makes sense for there to be a capacity crisis at the same time as so many trucks are running empty. That’s why we decided to do something about it.

FleetMAX is designed to help fleet owners eliminate empty miles and generate additional profit by making backhaul fleet capacity available to Kuebix’s vast community of shippers and brokers without the legwork fleet managers typically need to do to source backhaul freight for their assets. The program also eliminates the risk generally associated with contracting out with unknown shippers and streamlines the financial management. Instead of managing countless agreements with shippers and brokers, fleets manage a single agreement with Estes Truckload Management LLC.

This unique relationship with Estes Truckload Management LLC eliminates a major obstacle in the success of filling fleet backhauls by making the administration of charging the shipper and collecting the funds easy. With FleetMAX, all of the financials and settlements are managed through Estes Truckload Management, relieving private fleets of these administrative challenges. For brokers and shippers, FleetMAX offers untapped fleet capacity delivered through technology at attractive prices via a single provider, Estes Truckload Management, one of the most trusted names in the industry.

With FleetMAX, Kuebix’s technology digitally matches fleet capacity with freight to obtain consistent and repetitive external backhauls to offset empty miles, add revenue to fleet operations, and provide shippers/brokers a new source of trusted capacity. Now that’s a win-win for all parties.

Learn More about FleetMAX