Fuel Bonus - Want Opinions

Hey TTR fam -

With these rates down so far compared to a year ago, I feel like I’m needing to find areas to save money but yet couple it with motivating and getting more opportunity for my drivers.

During the great times we began offering a very aggressive pay and PTO package. Now that rates are in the toilet I don’t want to have to cut back my guys programs so what can I do to keep this up?

Looking at expenses we spent over $400,000 just on fuel in 2018. Naturally, this is an easy area to focus on where increasing performance can cut costs in a big way. So, what I’m thinking is putting together a fuel mpg performance program that saves me money yet also makes it to where the drivers can make EVEN more!

We are using Omnitrac for our ELD’s which have been working great and also have decent tracking for performance metrics. The only thing I don’t like is sometimes it’ll take an entire week to update and they don’t all update at the same time. Yesterday, I came across these guys: Home – LinkeDrive I don’t know yet if it’ll work simultaneously with Omnitrac or not being I’m assuming both would need plugged into the JBUS. I have more research to do with that. Anyway, it gives performance metrics in real time in several different ways and ranks the drivers in comparison with their peers. It’ll also compensate for weight, weather, terrain, etc so it’s more fair overall. As a driver I personally would love this. I’m competitive and also want to improve so it would add a whole new aspect and enjoyment out of driving.

Now to the meat and potatoes of what I’m considering.... let’s have a baseline of 6.75 mpg average per month. If you average this or worse you get no bonus and also can see how you compare to others and how to go about improving your numbers if you want to compete and achieve bonus. Anyone that achieves over 6.75 will get a bonus of 25% of the savings.

Example: 10,000 miles 7.75 mpg average and national fuel index at $3.25

10,000 / 6.75 = 1481 gallons 1481 x 3.25 = $4813.25
10,000 / 7.75 = 1290 gallons 1290 x 3.25 = $4192.50
$4813.25 - $4192.50 = $620.75 savings per month per truck.
$620.75 x 25% = $155 bonus to the driver
620.75 - 155 = $465 savings per truck to the company.

This wouldn’t cover the cost of our aggressive pay and PTO package but it sure would go a long enough way that we could keep it up and meet the goal of not having to lower benefits. I hope to get the rest of the way there by finding better fuel discount programs which I feel could save just as much on that end.

In the long run I do believe we would make more money in many different ways. Rates come back up and we’re still seeing savings. If fuel goes up the savings and bonuses become even larger. Less idle so better on the engine. Less shop time. General overall better on the truck and the driver respecting his or her truck even more as it’s making them even more money, etc.

I see a lot of positives here. I apologize for the long post but if you have made it this far let me know what you think! As a driver what are your thoughts? As an owner what are your thoughts?

Thanks.

 

The program can run on your phone and it’s pedal coach will tell you how to run to “keep it in the green” which means your raising your mpg. You may not have ever gotten a bonus before but would now. I don’t want to lower my trucks speed as that would only frustrate some of my best drivers who use it when they need it and overall would be counter productive to my goal. Losing an all star is not worth any of this to me. They are far too hard to find but also these best guys tend to get the best mpg anyway.

My trucks are set at 70 mph.

I don’t know that speed alone would be the end all be all but maybe just one of many aspects to increasing performance.

 

Modest increases weren’t getting any calls. I live in an area where there are a gazillion trucking companies so when freight is through the roof and 30% of my fleet is sitting that is costing me far more then making big changes and filling the trucks up and retaining those guys.

And I’m not doing this because I’m over extended. It’s not like we aren’t profitable. I’m just trying to be proactive in hard times that will make us even better off in good times. Also, if things did continue to get much worse even then these savings would make it to where I’d less quickly have to think about clawing back some of these benefits.

My drivers are guaranteed 2400 miles per week no matter what. Some don’t get that many and some get more which they get a mileage pay last that 2400. Point is for some the extra mileage argument wouldn’t be all that relevant because they are getting paid for those miles anyway.

I do see what you are saying though. It seems like already people are feeling that $150/mo is not very much. I’d like to think that guys would want to be one of the best in the fleet with no monetary incentive and the money would be a true bonus for essentially doing your job.

 

Maybe so but why didn’t you in the spring and fall then? And also these numbers and bonus thresholds would be based on averages so all you need to do is be “above average”.