Trucking for Fun Is No Fun: The Hidden Cost of Cultural Habits | Insights

Summary: Long-standing traditions and casual norms inside trucking corporations can unintentionally undermine monetary efficiency. While these habits could also be rooted in loyalty, pleasure, or a want to keep up relationships, they usually result in underpriced masses, neglected inefficiencies, and choices that prioritize familiarity over profitability.

“Trucking for fun is no fun” is a phrase utilized by KSM Transport Advisors (KSMTA) in consumer work and inner evaluation to explain a particular and recurring truckload conduct. It captures a sample the place carriers knowingly haul freight that fails to carry out on a core working ratio or FreightMath^™ working ratio foundation. These choices are deliberate responses formed by working tradition, behavior, and short-term comfort quite than long-term contribution.

Viewed one load at a time, these strikes usually seem rational. Each one solves an actual operational drawback within the second. The threat will not be the person resolution. The threat is accumulation. In immediately’s freight financial system, there is no such thing as a margin capability to soak up repeated, structurally unprofitable conduct.

Defining Fun Freight

Fun freight is any freight accepted for causes apart from its contribution to community profitability.

It contains freight hauled to reposition drivers who reside exterior the service’s strategic footprint.

It contains long-haul freight accepted to fulfill driver desire as an alternative of reinforcing community construction.

It contains quantity moved to protect utilization whereas quietly eroding density, predictability, and margin.

Across a fleet, enjoyable freight turns into a persistent and infrequently invisible supply of revenue erosion.

Density because the Structural Backbone

FreightMath density analysis persistently reveals freight community density is the first structural driver of truckload profitability. Density is created by means of repeatable freight patterns that reinforce each other, not by spreading capability throughout extra markets. It compresses empty miles, stabilizes driver schedules, reduces variability, and lowers the fee required to generate margin.

As established in prior FreightMath density analysis and reiterated most lately in our article “Freight Network Density: A Key To Cracking the TL Profitability Code” essentially the most revealing comparability happens when freight working inside an outlined strategic footprint is measured in opposition to freight moved exterior that footprint.

The Verdict: In-network freight persistently reveals far increased density, whereas out-of-footprint freight is scattered and costly. Freight moved contained in the strategic footprint is often 20% to 25% extra worthwhile than freight moved exterior it.

Density will not be a byproduct of profitability; it’s the engine behind it.

Why Density Matters More Than Ever

Density improves each side of the profitability equation concurrently. When freight exercise clusters tightly inside core markets, vehicles spend much less time repositioning, fewer miles are wasted, and extra cycles are accomplished with fewer variables.

From a FreightMath perspective, density delivers three reinforcing efficiency benefits:

• Improved Predictability: Dense networks depend on repeatable freight flows quite than opportunistic quantity. Planning turns into extra dependable, driver schedules stabilize, and reliance on unstable spot freight is decreased.
• Improved Cost Efficiency: Dense freight reduces empty and repositioning miles and shortens the gap between income strikes. Assets generate extra paid miles with much less wasted time and gasoline.
• Improved Velocity: Velocity displays how shortly a tractor completes a freight cycle and is redeployed productively. Dense networks cut back dwell, shorten cycle instances, and create extra income alternatives per asset every week.

Fun freight undermines all three benefits. It scatters capability, will increase variability, and breaks repeatability. The price will not be instant, however it’s inevitable, and it finally reveals up in community steadiness and profitability.

The Myth of “No Options”

Many carriers imagine that in immediately’s freight financial system they don’t have any selection however to take all accessible freight. This perception displays the situation of the community quite than the situation of the market.

From a FreightMath perspective, a scarcity of choices is a symptom of low density. When freight is scattered throughout too many markets and repeatability is weak, each load feels vital. Planning turns into reactive, and marginal freight is handled as survival freight as a result of alternate options don’t exist contained in the community.

Density adjustments that equation. As repeatable freight concentrates inside an outlined footprint, optionality will increase. Repositioning distances shorten. More acceptable masses exist on the identical time. Pricing self-discipline turns into potential even in gentle markets.

Taking all freight might hold vehicles transferring within the quick time period, but it surely reinforces the very situations that remove selection over time. Carriers don’t lack choices as a result of the market is weak. They lack choices as a result of their networks lack density.

The Home-Time Subsidy

One of the commonest sources of enjoyable freight is hauled to get drivers residence after they reside exterior the service’s strategic footprint. The justification is acquainted. Driver retention issues. Hiring is pricey. A single unprofitable transfer feels insignificant in contrast with changing a driver.

FreightMath evaluation reveals the fee is cumulative. Repeated repositioning from noncore domiciles absorbs a structural subsidy. Empty miles enhance. Balance deteriorates. Cycle instances lengthen. Pricing self-discipline weakens as gross sales groups be taught which freight have to be taken no matter margin.

This will not be a driver drawback. It is a community design failure. Fun freight turns into the mechanism that masks the mismatch till profitability reveals the underlying concern.

The Long-Haul Productivity Fallacy

Another embedded enjoyable conduct is accepting long-haul freight to let drivers stretch their legs. Long miles really feel productive and help utilization optics. In isolation, a long-haul transfer at a marginal fee can seem acceptable.

FreightMath density analysis reveals that size of haul with out repeatability undermines efficiency. Long-haul freight that bypasses core markets usually replaces a number of dense, high-contribution turns with a single marginal transfer. Tractor positioning turns into unpredictable, growing repositioning miles and disrupting driver cycles.

Aggregated throughout the fleet, these choices skinny density and weaken community management. In sturdy markets, the injury is hidden. In gentle markets, it turns into seen shortly.

Owner-Operator Models Do Not Isolate Risk

Carriers usually argue enjoyable freight doesn’t matter if it’s hauled by owner-operators or lease-purchase drivers. The assumption is that shifted possession reduces price and threat. From a FreightMath perspective, that assumption is flawed.

Owner-operators function underneath the service’s authority and pull the service’s trailers. Every mile they run carries enterprise threat, influencing accident publicity, cargo claims, and long-term insurance coverage price. Risk is incurred per mile, not per possession construction.

Owner-operator miles additionally form density, lane steadiness, and cycle time simply as firm gear does. Any perceived margin aid is usually an phantasm. Capacity dedicated to exceptions is capability not reinforcing dense, repeatable freight.

If freight touches the community, it carries threat. If it carries threat, it should carry contribution.

Utilization Without Contribution

Fun freight persists as a result of it hides behind utilization metrics. Trucks are transferring. Drivers are paid. Revenue is booked. FreightMath attracts a transparent distinction between movement and contribution.

When carriers shield utilization optics on the expense of margin, they commerce structural well being for short-term consolation. Density-driven utilization compounds effectivity. Exception-driven utilization compounds variability.

Actionable Strategy for Eliminating Fun

Breaking the “fun cycle” requires structural self-discipline:

• Align domiciles with the strategic footprint.
• Evaluate each lane on a FreightMath working ratio foundation.
• Use density as a gating mechanism for freight acceptance.
• Expose exceptions and make their price seen.
• Incentivize margin-adjusted outcomes quite than movement.

“Trucking for fun is no fun” will not be an argument in opposition to flexibility or driver wants. It is a KSMTA framing of a easy fact. Profitability is cumulative. In a freight financial system with no room for error, carriers that tolerate small, justifiable losses will proceed to work onerous whereas failing to attain sturdy monetary outcomes.

To be taught extra or focus on any of the concepts shared above, please contact a KSMTA advisor by way of the shape under.