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What is "traffic lane density?" This is a term you may or may not have heard in the course of doing business as a trucker. But as you're about to see, its very important in determining whether you are profitable or not.

Traffic lane density is the art of load planning-which the way to keep the truck full with profitable tonnage whenever it is rolling. It's documented that over 40 percent of all over the road (OTR) trucks traversing American highways are partially or completely empty. This is an indication that efficiency is not a part of the plan. Traffic lane density should be one of the dispatch plans every trucking operation implements, regardless of size.

The plan is simple: keep your trailer loaded every mile it has tires rolling on highway pavement. This means you're looking for return tonnage while considering what you're going to load outbound. Better yet, you're looking two or three or more trips into the future, planning loads for each truck, so that every trailer has a load assigned to it long before it has reached its destination.

The plan is to eliminate deadheading and unnecessary sitting by maximizing lane density. Don't allow the truck or your loads to select your downtime or contribute to unpaid or underpaid miles.

In today's trucking market, on average, there is more tonnage to haul than there are trucks available to carry it. Any trucking company or individual owner-operator who isn't charging roundtrip miles on any outbound load is going to get left behind.

Shipping management articles are advising companies to contract with several different companies of all sizes to ensure their loads get covered. The days of the exclusive hauling contract are slowing or coming to an end. Shippers are anticipating rate increases as the available amount of loads increase and the number of drivers is stagnant or sliding downward. With this happening, there has never been a greater opportunity for quality, service-minded trucking companies and owner-operators to earn the revenue to be truly profitable.

Every mile a truck is driven costs money, whether loaded or not. Once a load is delivered, both the number of days from that delivery date and the number of miles required to complete the next trip all "belong" to this new load.

The Straight Line
Regardless of whether you are hauling paying tonnage or sailboat fuel, deadheading or traveling to your next pickup, every time a truck is rolling there is money going out the exhaust. Keep in mind, to maintain lane density, you must think in straight lines. Keep that loaded truck on the most direct path between pickup and delivery. Minimize distance traveled to save on operational costs and driver's hours of service.

The idea that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points works here. You must match your loads-as the truck starts pickups and deliveries, it deviates very little from the straight line. When it has to stray from the line to pick up or deliver, the rates charges reflect the time and distance required out of route. Small-package trucking companies do this, why shouldn't you?

Don't be fooled by the rate-per-mile of a specific shipment or load. What counts is the actual distance the rubber rolls and the amount of time required to accomplish the entire trip. A rate-per-mile is nothing more or less than a means by which you can figure the amount to be charged to the customer. That rate-per-mile is usually figured on some arbitrary mileage table that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual miles that will be covered. You must compare your revenue to the actual miles to be driven and time required to complete the trip. Moreover, those miles and that time must start from the place and time you delivered your previous trip's load. That is, not from origin to destination but from destination to destination.

Plan
Here's that four letter word again: plan! But don't get caught with the wrong plan. Most truckers and small fleets run on the day-to-day plan. In the morning, they determine which trucks are going to be empty that day and start searching for loads for them. That's a plan, but not a good one.

Instead, you've got to have a "traffic lane strategy," one that not only looks at today but as far into the future as possible. If you haven't located the return load before you accept the outbound load, you have a failing plan. To set in motion the best plan, you must be prepared with the right strategy.

Your Traffic Lane Strategy should include the following:

• Set up dedicated routes for each of your traffic lanes.
• Look for tonnage along these lanes before you need it.
• Find loads long before you need them.
• Always have more tonnage available than trucks.
• Set up a bread and butter run for each truck and driver.
• Don't look for loads at the last minute.
• Always plan two to three loads ahead for each truck.
• Think multi-directional, outbound, return, and in-between.
• Don't send a truck out without a return plan.
• Provide quality service so shippers will call you back.
• Always look beyond the horizon.

Today, to compete successfully in this new era, you must:

Stay Hungry. Somewhere in the US, at least six very hungry people are trying to take your success away from you, and they may be willing to work harder to get it than you are to keep it.

Improve. Stop focusing on how it's always been done, and look for ways to improve. It's a given that someone will make today's methods obsolete in the future, so it might as well be you.

Stop looking for "security." Your only real security is your ability to embrace rapid changes.

Stop trying to look busy. Survival is about productivity, not activity. Never stop learning.

Remember, it's your company, your truck!

 

NTA, Inc. is available to members only. If you're not a member, join now. The NTA, Inc. is a nationwide association established to provide services, benefits and information to private fleets, trucking companies and owner-operators. We are the only association that provides our members with more FREE services and benefits than any other. For more information or details call (562) 630-7637 in California or 800 805-0040 toll free. You can e-mail me at wayne@ntassoc.com.