Abstract

Increasing Dedicated Fleet Backhaul Potential While Managing Out-of-Route Miles
Track: Transportation
Authors: Tom Clements

Werner Enterprises has Dedicated Fleets located across the country. Most fleets are primarily outbound focused and struggle to find freight to have a loaded backhaul. Fleets desire to reduce empty miles, but also need to get equipment back so it can be turned outbound again. The balance to satisfy both of those constraints means that we need to know how far out of route a backhaul will be so that we don't delay the truck from it's next load. Using ESRI we have developed a process where we take known lanes that are challenging to backhaul and geoprocess the areas where acceptable backhauls can be found. The area is cone shaped, because if a truck starts returning empty the closer it gets to the depot the less it is willing to go out-of-route and risk delay. These maps are then used by operations and sales to identify good backhaul matches.