General questions for owner operators

The worse the market is, the farther out I try to plan. Nowadays I find my best results doing all my booking between Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon. So by Thursday I want to be booked thru next Tuesday. Then I just keep my eye open for anything ridiculous. If I find one, I'll book it, otherwise an empty truck in a hot market is in high demand.

I'll usually deliver one load and pick up the next on the same day. But sometimes I'll pick up next morning, for example if I'm low on recap hours, need some maintenance, or the prior load delivers in the evening.

I prefer longer runs, and reefer freight accommodates nicely. Fewer, longer runs equals less time at docks and less paperwork. Shorter runs occasionally serve a purpose though. For example getting out of a weak market, no sense in driving cross country for a carpy rate. Take the shortest cheap load to the nearest decent market instead. Or when trying to get to a certain destination, a shortie can fill a gap between two sweet loads. Or sometimes I'll try to find the best load east of the Mississippi a few days ahead of time, book it, and then find loads to get me to the pickup. Basically another type of destination freight.

 

1. Up to 3-4 loads at the most. It is no more than 2 weeks ahead. Sometimes, when they cancel, the whole plan of loads needs to be rearranged. Where the volume is good, it is easy to find a load on the very day.
2. Between loads? It varies. Sometimes a few hours, sometimes I wait until the next day (like today).
3. Wherever the money is. If they pay $1000 for a 100 miles straight through delivery bottled water load, then I'll take it any day and night.
I find it more efficient to do loads that take 2 days to deliver: 500 - 900 mile range. That's because picking up and delivering every day, on short trips, takes less miles but more stress and effort, with load searching, picking up and delivering. With these medium range trips, I can secure half week revenue over two days.

 

Anywhere from 5 minutes to a week or so. Setting a good week up works real nice, until that load for today dries up and you're 500 miles from tomorrow's load and there's nothing headed that way. You can shaft yourself pretty good sometimes.

 

Maybe Thursday or Friday for a Monday load or depending on what loads are out there I may wait until Monday morning. I will look at loads but I rarely book another until the one I’m on is put to bed. To many things like crane appointments and broke down forklifts etc to stress over not making the next load.
So unless I know the load is coming off ASAP when I deliver I won’t book another until I have all my stuff put away and often parked at a Truckstop looking for another. I’ve lost a few loads this way but I’ve also gotten much better loads this way I would have missed out on. Of course the worst the rates are or loads in an area the more prone I am to book ahead. Example, if taking a really nice paying load to Florida, and 17 miles away is a really nice paying load coming out I am more likely to take it. If I a delivering to hot area in Tenn. then the less likely I am to book a load until I am unloaded.
In open deck stuff I tend to not get in a hurry.

 

I'm still very new to this, but my experience.

1. I try to have at least my next load booked. While these older MC#'s won't have trouble getting a load at the last minute, new MC#'s like me have a much smaller # of brokers available.

2. I arrange my loads so for the most part, I deliver first thing am, pick up shortly after that, and get in a few hundred miles.

3. I've found for me right now, longer runs are more efficient for me. While the RPM will be lower, I still come out better by spending all my hours picking up miles, and less time delivering, securing, picking up, and tarping.

 

Depends. Usually wait til the last minute. Very rarely are we booked more than 2-3 days out. Wait til the end of the day 4-6pm and that load needs to be picked up by tomorrow morning, you can see a huge price jump compared to yesterday