How do they schedule loads?

True story
A few years ago I ran for a renegade
Two months of pure hell
I was running a load to KC in a mean blizzard. Both wipers were shot
At 8pm I was doing 20 mph on 70
Completely blind. Boss man wouldn't pay for new wipers
I gave up and pulled into warrenton Mo.
Got up at 3am. Blizzard still raging
Turned on the wipers
The driver's side gave up the ghost and fell off
Boss all pissed finally said I could buy one wiper. Said I only need half the window.
I somehow got to Leavenworth, unloaded, and went to kC for a load of dogfood. Got it there at 3pm
They had a scale on sight, and after loading, I rolled the scale
2 grand over gross
Went back to the dock. They had locked up and ran to their cars just after loading me.
12 phone calls later, a guy came back and yanked a pallet.
It was 5:30pm, I'd been running since 4 am
The load had to be at Aldi's in Indy at 6am
I got there at 5:45
I could write a book on the things I went through with that guy for two months.

 

I ran outlaw for about eight months. Basically a circle consisting of Phoenix, Albuquerque and El Paso. Run as much as you can between Sunday night and Friday, maybe sleep in the dock. Sweet trucks though. Fully loaded Petes and KW ungoverned and 600 hp give or take. But Christ I was tired.

 

Love the post! Should be a classic.

Getting back into trucking after a few decades working in sales, management, and running my own businesses, I appreciate trying to learn the logistics side of any company I drive for. I take the time to talk to planners, driver managers, etc.

While I was at Swift I was invited by a planner to observe how the planning system works. He had a list of loads to plan, organized by priority. He selected the first load, a JIT load 1000 mile run. Then he pulled up a screen that was essentially Google Satellite View with an icon locating the shipper and icons showing available empty trucks.

There were three trucks in a 60 mile radius. The closest truck was about 10 miles away from the shipper. He clicked on that icon and a screen popped up that showed parameters of driver rating. It wasn't good. Several service failures and only averaging 1500 miles a week.

The next truck was 30 miles away. That driver had no service failures, ran 2200 miles a week, but in the comments section it was noted he refused to run at night.

The truck 60 miles away had a driver with no service failures, averaged 2600 miles a week, had several positive comments from customers, and was coded as a "go to" driver.

Of course the "go to" driver got the 1000 mile JIT load. The drivers with lesser performance got some loads that were much shorter and IIRC one had to sit on the load for the weekend.

Moral of the story, being a driver is a self fulfilling prophecy. You want more miles? Then run more miles. Service the #### out the customers and be a professional. At small companies your reputation is known by name. At a large company your reputation is tracked by performance parameters. Build your reputation and when critical loads come up your hat is in the ring.