Hauling Regular Routes

with your own authority its possble,dont no your region but some carriers have same thing

 

i would say 50-75% of all trucking is regular routes---the same shippers and customers.

i mean, think about it----a big company, say whirlpool. They pump out washing machines and the sell them to sears, best buy, hhgregg etc. Wouldn't it be better for them to work with one or two stable trucking companies which will give them a good, rock-bottom rate than to work with a different trucking company for each shipment? (they may ship 20 trailers a day every day)

 

I assume you are talking about direct loads. We would all give our left you know what for a deal like that. Do some have those deals? I'd say yes. I'll bet it is like the 80K driving job, not many. I have even looked at the load boards and tried to find something like that.

On the load boards, the loads will come out at 1-2 a day for a week or two and then quit for two weeks or go somewhere else. From my point of view it might be possible on one end but very hard to do both directions. I think it would be easier with multiple trucks.

The shipper wants someone he can depend on rain or shine come hell or waters high. If you did set something up going one way, you would have to have a plan to move that load no matter what. I have read on this forum where owner/operators have rented trucks to meet the commitment. It would need to pay well enough if you couldn't get loaded for the return trip you could afford to come back empty occasionally.

Now if you are talking about brokered loads that might be more likely. If you do a good job and make a good impression that could work if he has enough volume. I ran potatoes year round for several years with a broker back when you could put a load on. I never had a problem getting a load but I hauled to a six state area and return loads weren't too impressive.

IMHO, the only way it will work well is if you can get enough to limit your miles and make what you need. Too many things go wrong, loads run late and equipment breaks down. If you were only running 2000 miles a week with a dedicated turn or maybe two turns, you might pull it off. If you're running much harder, when things go wrong everything falls apart.

Since I'm no expert, I look forward to other posts on this topic.

 

I would say this setup is unlikely unless there are two very high volume shippers on both ends of your lane. In my opinion, they would need to ship multiple loads per day to the destination you desire. Otherwise, it would be too unlikely that their shipments would match up to keep you moving. As a "one man show" it is unlikely that you could juggle multiple customers and their varying volumes. Those type of high volume shippers are generally serviced by large carriers, and they would tend to match up those lanes. A more likely scenario is that you would find a shipper would provide consistent traffic for the first lane. You might find a shipper that would that would reload you 25% of the time on the return leg, and have to hit the broker board. In 12+ years I have only come across one lane that worked like you described. The shipper had a distribution center aprox 500 miles from their production facility. The had a steel supplier 50 mi from the dist center. During their busy season we had trucks that would load on one end each day. They also had company truck that would handle 50% of the volume during the busy season, but 100% when things slowed down. This is another thing you will find. If it is easy, the price will be very competitive.

A one man show with low overhead might be able to make a living on this time of run. Good luck with your search.