Leasing at Prime

How are you dispatched? With that I mean do you have pick up and delivery windows or the actual appointment times, or are you given the times that the company thinks you should be there for P/U and Delivery? Thanks.

 

Thank you for the information IP. It will definitely help me make my decision here in a few months. One thing I noticed is that say you run mostly North east. Are you considered regional with them, is it that they know you like to be up in that area, or do you actually have a choice of whatever loads are available in the area? I live in the south, spent most of my life in the north east, and would rather go there sparingly. I'd prefer to stay south / southwest. I know freight isn't as plentiful in those regions, but it's just me, no wife or kids and minimal home expenses. I'm not looking to make a extravagant amount of money, but am interested in the business side of this job. Thank you again for the info.

 

Sorry if this has been asked already. What is their pet policy if your L/O? Pound limit?

 

Thanks for all the great info...One more question for ya
As a lease operator, what can one expect as far as home time? Do you still have to follow Primes home time policy? I know it partially depends on how much money you want to make, but one of the things that intrigues me about a lease is making my own decisions about days I might want to be home. Say you wanted to get home for a family occasion or something, Do you usually have enough flexibility to get home for it? I'm not against staying out 3-5 weeks at a time, but being able to get home when I want/need to is important. Thanks again for taking the time to answer all these questions.

 

IP is it better financially for an o/o to to be dispatched out of springfield instead of pittston ? and would asking to stay in the north east also be better for shorter runs? any idea how much a o/o who is training averages a year for himself ?

 

I didn't get to post a quote about training and income, but I will do a little splainin here....

First, take a look at a typical team truck and it's revenue. At 5000 miles and $0.40 per mile the truck will make about $2000 for the truck, split would be $1000 for each driver before taxes. This is the typical scenario for a team company truck.

Now lets take a look at the lease operators truck, solo: With a gross revenue of $3500 for the week running about 2000 miles you would net between $750 and $950 depending on your MPG efficiency. This is a good average for a lease truck (IP chime in here) and with a goal of $4000 gross per week you can clear $1200 easy. (I am lowballing these numbers so we don't get any pie in the sky thinking here) Lower the miles that you run with the same gross income and you get more net revenue, mainly because you are using less fuel. Get a newer trailer, or a load that runs 10 var at 35 degrees and your net revenue climbs a little more. Each factor will adjust your net revenue either positive or negative. Get an ice cream load on a 100 degree day and you could be spending $60+ per day on reefer fuel (or more)

So, we have a good snapshot of the team company truck and typical lease solo truck. Now lets climb into our lease truck with a codriver/trainee: Now you can run 5000 miles plus per week (not that you want to) and have a gross income of $6500-$9000. Now lets break down the net. First pay the trainee 0.12 per mile, and add in all of the gov't costs of income tax, SS tax, workman's comp such. Going with 5000 miles you are paying him $600, but your cost will be $670 or so. If you then figure out your cost for fuel for 5000 miles ($3.50 and 7.9MPG) you come up with $2215 in fuel. Add that to your fixed cost of (ballpark) $1100 and reefer fuel of about $15 per day (good avg) of $105 and you can ballpark (lots of ball parking here) your net income to be (we will go with $7200 gross for the week) you get $3110 net income for the week. This shows quite a jump in income, but you had better put some of that away for the effects of an inexperienced driver on your truck. Brakes cost $$$, so do tires, front fenders, mirrors, and anything else that a trainee can break. (or that service failure ) With a student on your truck for 6 weeks and you have increased your revenue over a solo by almost 200%.

Now for the advice... trainees are not stupid. they know that you are banking serious $$$ for their driving. DO NOT TAKE advantage of them. I have heard about trainees not getting showers... (or paying for showers) not getting trained on their eLogs, sending in trip sheets, backing into shippers/receivers, not doing arrival and departure messages. I know that if I drove for 6 weeks, made another man $18k in that 6 weeks and had to buy showers or didn't learn the truck management, I would be one P/O'd man on a mission to spread the word...