How to cut trucks per night

Why fleets end up sending more trucks than the freight needs, what one truck a night is worth, and seven steps to send fewer.

Why fleets send more trucks than they need

Almost no one sends an extra truck on purpose. It happens a little at a time, for reasons that each make sense on the night.

• Half-full trailers. A truck leaves with room for more pallets because nobody had time to see that two short routes could be one.
• "Just in case" trucks. When the night feels tight, it feels safer to add a truck than to risk a missed window. Over a year, those safe nights add up.
• Routes built from memory. Routes that made sense two years ago keep running because "that's how we do it", even after stores open, close or change their orders.
• Late add-on orders. An order comes in at 9 PM. The easy fix is a new truck. The better fix, finding room on a truck already going that way, takes time nobody has at 9 PM.
• Nobody sees the fill. If you can't see how full each trailer is, you can't see the one that should not have gone.

The simple math

If your trucks run five nights a week, one truck a night is about 260 runs a year. So the value of cutting one truck a night is roughly:

260 runs a year × your cost per run

Your cost per run is what one truck going out costs you: the driver's pay for the run, fuel, tolls, and wear on the truck and trailer. Some people also add a share of insurance and lease costs. Use the number your own books give you. Even a modest cost per run turns into a big number at 260 runs.

Steps to send fewer trucks

1. Measure fill on every truck

For one week, write down how full each trailer was when it left: pallet spots used, cube used and weight. You will likely find a few trucks that are always light. Those are where to start.

2. Find out which limit each truck hits

A truck is full when it runs out of floor spots, cube or weight, whichever comes first. If a truck is light on all three, it could carry more. If it is out of weight but half empty on the floor, adding pallets won't help, but moving heavy stops to another truck might.

3. Check your delivery windows

Windows are often the real reason for an extra truck. Ask each customer for their actual receiving hours. A window that is wider than you thought can let two routes become one.

4. Rebuild routes from the orders, not from habit

Start from tonight's orders and build the routes fresh. Compare the result to what you run today. If the fresh plan uses fewer trucks and still makes every window, your old routes have drifted.

5. Use trucks more than once

If your stops are close to the dock, a truck that comes back early can go out again. Planning two or more runs for the same truck and driver can cover the work of a second truck.

6. Place late orders on trucks already going

Make a rule: a late add-on goes onto a truck that is already headed that way and has room, before anyone adds a truck. This is much easier when you can see every truck's fill and route at a glance.

7. Count the trucks that went out, every night

Track trucks per night and average fill as two numbers on the wall. What gets watched gets better.

How Dock to Route helps

Dock to Route builds the night from your orders in one click. Every load shows its miles, its fill and its cost, and tells you which limit it hit first: floor space, cube or weight. It checks delivery windows, temperature zones and your own rules while it builds.

It also plans trucks that run more than once. A truck can come back, be reloaded and go out again, within your limits for runs per truck and hours per day, so you can see how many trucks the day really needs. When a late order comes in, it lands on the cheapest legal truck and the other routes stay put.