Reason carriers have more trailers than tractors

Easy answer. You can drop and hook at shippers and receivers if you have a massive trailer pool. It also establishes you with a shipper. For example, my carrier can tender more loads with certain customers because of the amount of trailers we have empty and available at that customer's location (s).

 

Just speaking for my employer, when we drop a trailer at a customer (shipper or receiver), no other carrier is suppose to take that trailer. It belongs to my company, not Swift, JB Hunt, etc.

Also, when we drop the loaded trailer at a receiver, if they keep for a certain amount of time (not sure what that time frame is), my boss charges a storage fee. It encourages them to unload it in a timely manner.

From personal experience, if one of our drivers spots another carrier's tractor pulling our trailer, we let dispatch know (hopefully we got the company name off of the truck and maybe the truck number). My company will then take the necessary action. The circumstance I am familiar with, the other carrier was charged a fee for using our trailer to pull their load.

 

Most big carriers, and many small ones too, have had gps trackers on their trailers for years. Also when dispatch is notified, either directly or over QC or Peoplenet, their computers update the location in their system. Not to say trailers never get "lost" but for the most part they can tell where any trailer is at any time.