Need information about LandStar and LS`s load board!!!!

It's a tough call. There's money to be made at LS if your a go getter and a good planner. If you miss one day or two of hauling, due to poor planning or take a gamble going to a certain area and end up losing, your next week could suffer. Poor planning will also cause something like you empty out on a Friday somewhere and didn't end up booking freight out on Friday for whatever reason and end up sitting all weekend. So, planning will play a critical role in your bottom line at LS. I enjoy and pefer this way personally.

(Not to detour you but from my experience) There is freight in Chicago Land, but not the type of freight that would bring you home very often; Even being home on the weekends and netting 2k a week is kind of a long shot. I'm sure it's done, and over time you would know who has what freight in your area then they could rely on you to do their local 30 mile runs @ $30 a mile or whatever the purchase price is.

Chicago is a trade show area. LS is into the trade show business. It usually pays well because it's specialized work.

To make it a LS you gotta pull your own trailer. This is my opinion. The higher percentage of revenue earned will be noticed every settlement.

Dry Van is decent, but everybody does it. LS is good in the fact that it finds itself in many Niché markets. Crane freight, specialized drop decks, Oversize/Overweight, temp sensitive haz-mat, low activity radioactive transport, medicine, aircraft industry, any any other place a specialized customer wouldn't want to send an average company drive to.

Many of our customers don't have typical loading dock/warehousing. I did crane van for a year delivering alignment machines to car dealerships all across the country, big dealerships and to the little mom n pop spots. I often find myself at places to this day that I know an average driver would be like "no way" like backing up into a 10ft wide alley way for a customer from a four lane street in Los Angeles during morning traffic where there's only a few seconds of a break in traffic to back it in or backing up into a machine shop with maybe 3 inches of wiggle room between expensive machines just so they could use their overhead crane to off load. It can get a little crazy on the van side to. BUT: that's why LS is somewhere I keep my truck(s) , because if you have above average expectations for your business then you have to be where above average activity is going on.

U would have to haul at a LS rate of $2.50 to make what your earning now. $2.50- current fuel surcharge or .15 or so cents= $2.35 x by current rate of 65% if you use LS's trailer: so $2.35 x .65 = $1.53 then add back your current fuel surcharge (.15) because you get 100% of that would equal $1.67 a mile or so.

That type of freight is here for vans but not so much right now. The going rates I've been seeing on straight dry van side is $1.80-$2.5 right now. If you bring your own van trailer, it's worth an extra 7%, flats are worth an extra 8%, last I heard refers are worth an extra 10%

So it comes down to what people on here are saying. What are you looking for, what do you value the most right now. If being home all the time is very important and top of the list then I say u got it made pretty good already. But if staying out for a while is no concern then more research into LS may be something to consider. The way I usually do home time at this point in my life is, I'll work til I'm satisfied where things are and then just take a week to a month or so off. Whenever I get the urge to get back on the road I go

Hopefully this helps

 

I can tell you from working out of Rockford,IL Landstar that their freight is much more OTR than local. We have a handful of O/O that do some local stuff on dedicated in Rockford area but that's mostly automotive with Belvedere Plant Chrysler and they only have a couple guys on that. Most guys that make good money at landstar stay out a month or so. Some even more, and yes you can make good money that way. Simply because you're not taking cheap freight to try and go home. You let that revenue build up before you need home time.

 

I've been with LS 3 years or so now. E-Logs are fine. All new leases are required to operate on E-logs, which are installed by a LS contracted company at an orientation center. The big difference of course between dry van and refer is that one can haul temperature controlled goods, like food and hazmat. I'm not sure if LS has refer trailers of their own to let BCO's use, I don't think they do. So u would have to bring in your own refer, but it would put u in the small percentage at LS which would make your service more valuable.

 

Yup. Well refer typically pays more. It's a larger overhead to run a refer. Yea no disrespect meant, your question was vague so I had to answer vague first.

 

No he pulls a flatbed. He recently switched to stepdeck and his revenue increased. Not saying that is good or bad, but remember that number i quoted. Was for ALL miles empty, loaded, or at home driving to wally world. From time to time i use his password. I pick a load, pretend i took it. Find a reload etc... I do that for a coyple weeks at a time. I NEVER WORKED THERE but imho i would lease on there. BUT not strictly for the money as i dont see a major increase over what im doing now. But the freedom of dispatching myself and going or staying (or not) out and home when i want (or bank account allows haha) is worth it alone

 

I just quit LS after 11 years. Van freight is kinda slim pickings. You can only move Landstar loads. So you won't see much if any reefer load unless you are in with an agent that can call and get the reefer loads for you. Just because a load is on the load board does not mean it's a real load available. The agent will post any load they find. When you call asking about the load, they have to call the shipper to see if the load is still available. The agent can't commit to a load with out a truck to move it. So all they can do is list the load.. I did OK but never made big money