Deadhead Miles Are Costing You More Than You Think (And How to Cut Them)

Most carriers track loaded miles. The rate per mile is right there on the rate confirmation — it's the number you negotiated, the number you remember when you talk about the load. What most carriers don't track with the same discipline is the miles they ran to get to that load, or the miles they ran home from it empty. That gap between what you measure and what you don't measure is where the money disappears.

Deadhead miles aren't a rounding error. For a carrier running 20 percent or more of their total miles empty — which is more common than most operators realize — the cost is significant enough to swing the difference between a profitable week and a break-even week on the same set of loads.

The real cost of a deadhead kilometre

When you run empty, you still burn fuel. You still accumulate wear on tyres, brakes, and drivetrain. You still spend time behind the wheel that could be generating revenue. The cost of a deadhead kilometre is not zero — it is the sum of all those real expenses with no offsetting revenue to cover them.

Here is a rough cost breakdown for a typical 26-foot straight truck operating in Ontario:

• Fuel: At $1.65 per litre (diesel, Ontario average) and roughly 22 to 26 litres per 100 kilometres, fuel cost per kilometre is approximately $0.36 to $0.43 CAD. Empty trucks burn somewhat less than loaded — call it 80 percent of loaded fuel consumption — so roughly $0.29 to $0.34 per deadhead kilometre in fuel alone.
• Maintenance: Industry estimates for all-in maintenance costs (tyres, oil, brakes, repairs) typically run $0.14 to $0.22 per kilometre regardless of load status. Tyres and brakes wear whether the truck is loaded or not.
• Time cost: Your time has value. If you can earn $35 to $50 an hour running loaded freight and you're instead running two hours empty, that's $70 to $100 in opportunity cost that doesn't appear on any invoice.

Add it up and a conservative estimate for direct out-of-pocket cost (fuel plus maintenance) per deadhead kilometre is $0.43 to $0.56 CAD. Converting to miles for carriers who think in those units: roughly $1.10 to $1.45 CAD per deadhead mile, or approximately $0.80 to $1.05 USD. Factoring in time value, the all-in cost per deadhead mile rises to $1.40 to $1.80 USD equivalent — the figure that appears most often in U.S. carrier benchmarking studies, which aligns reasonably with Canadian operations adjusted for exchange rate and fuel prices.

How to calculate your deadhead ratio

The deadhead ratio is the most useful single metric for understanding your empty-miles problem. The formula is simple:

Deadhead ratio = deadhead kilometres ÷ total kilometres × 100

If you drove 4,200 kilometres last week, 800 of them empty, your deadhead ratio is 19 percent.

Industry benchmarks suggest that 10 to 15 percent is a reasonable target for a carrier running consistent lanes. Under 10 percent indicates exceptional lane efficiency — usually the result of true round-trip freight or a high-density local market. Over 20 percent means you are working hard and generating significant costs to move freight, but a meaningful portion of your effort is uncompensated. Over 30 percent is a serious structural problem that needs to be addressed before anything else.

How to pull this data: modern ELD systems (KeepTruckin/Motive, Samsara, PeopleNet) generate mileage reports that separate loaded and unloaded segments. If your ELD has this reporting capability, run a monthly summary. If it doesn't, you can calculate it manually from your trip logs by recording odometer at load pickup and delivery, and separately recording any miles driven without a load.

Building a round-trip lane strategy

The most powerful deadhead-reduction tool is a lane that goes both ways. If you can build a freight pattern where you have a reliable load heading out and a reliable load coming back, your deadhead drops dramatically and your revenue per week increases significantly even if the per-kilometre rate on either leg is unremarkable.

The Toronto-Montreal corridor is the clearest example in Ontario. It's one of the most freight-dense lanes in Canada. Manufacturing goods, retail merchandise, and food products move in both directions continuously. A carrier who establishes reliable capacity on both the westbound and eastbound legs — either through direct shipper relationships, a broker who books both sides, or a dispatch partner who actively manages backhauls — can run this lane week after week with minimal deadhead.

Building toward two or three core lanes with genuine round-trip freight access is more valuable than chasing higher per-kilometre rates on one-way loads. Do the weekly math, not the per-load math. A carrier earning $1.85/km on 3,600 loaded kilometres with 8 percent deadhead earns more net revenue per week than a carrier earning $2.10/km on 2,800 loaded kilometres with 22 percent deadhead — even though the second carrier has a higher posted rate.

Tools for finding backhaul loads

Once you know where you're going, the backhaul problem becomes a load-finding problem. Several approaches:

• Loadlink backhaul search: Loadlink allows you to search for loads by origin and destination. Before you leave Montreal, search Loadlink for Montreal-to-Toronto loads with your equipment class and availability window. This is the most direct approach and works best in high-density markets.
• DAT backhaul circles: DAT's search interface lets you define a radius around your destination — useful when you're willing to drive 50 to 80 kilometres to pick up a load that positions you well for the return leg.
• Notify your dispatch explicitly: If you use a dispatch service, make your return availability clear before you leave on the outbound leg. "I deliver in Montreal Thursday morning and need a return load for Thursday afternoon or Friday morning" is a specific, bookable request. A dispatch that knows your destination and timeline can often pre-book your return while you're still running out.
• Maintain your broker network: Brokers who book freight on both sides of a corridor are valuable precisely because of this. If you run Toronto-Montreal regularly and a broker who books both legs knows you're reliable, they will call you first when they need the backhaul covered.

When deadhead miles are actually worth it

Not all empty miles are bad business decisions. Sometimes repositioning makes clear economic sense and refusing to deadhead would cost you more than the empty kilometres do.

The decision framework is straightforward: a deadhead run is worth it when the revenue from the load it positions you for exceeds the cost of running empty to get it, and when the alternative is worse. For example, if you're sitting in Windsor with no load available on your equipment and a broker in Toronto has a $2,500 load ready for Monday morning, the question is whether the cost of driving 370 kilometres empty to Toronto (roughly $180 to $220 in direct costs) is worth securing a $2,500 load. In most cases, yes.

Where carriers go wrong is deadheading without doing this math — running empty on instinct rather than calculation. The instinct often says "I can't sit here, I need to be somewhere better." The math sometimes says "sitting here for eight hours and then taking the $1,200 local load is actually better than spending $200 to get to Toronto for a load that doesn't exist yet."

Do the calculation before you commit to the empty run. What is the cost of the deadhead? What load are you positioning for, and how certain are you that it exists? What is the alternative if you stay? These are the three questions that determine whether the deadhead is a rational business decision or an expensive reaction to boredom and anxiety.

The dispatch advantage in reducing deadhead

The structural advantage a good dispatch service provides on deadhead is timing. Deadhead typically happens because you finish a load and discover there is nothing available at your destination. The gap between delivery and the next load is where the empty kilometres accumulate.

A dispatch that knows where you are headed — before you arrive — can begin lining up your next load while you are still on the previous run. By the time you deliver, there is already a rate con for the next leg. You unload and load, not unload and wait.

This sounds simple but requires two things that are hard to maintain solo: relationships with brokers in your destination markets, and the time and attention to work the phones before the current load is done. Most owner-operators are driving when they should be booking — which means they are booking after they deliver, which means they start the backhaul search with zero lead time.

TRUCC specifically focuses on Ontario-Quebec corridor lanes and maintains active broker relationships at both ends. We book backhaul before you deliver the outbound leg whenever possible, which means our carriers consistently run deadhead ratios below the industry average. If minimizing your empty miles is a priority, talk to us about how we manage lane planning for our carriers.