Planning trips. How many loads ahead?

Yes, it is similar for each truck but not identical. The trucks, on any given day, are all in different places, need to get to different places, havedifferent hours available on their log books, and have different home time requirements. We have several contracted loads that we haul each week and we use load boards to get back to our contract shippers. And right now with th spot market on fire, we have several trucks just running strictly load board freight. It's a never ending jigsaw puzzle and no day, or week, or month is ever identical.

 

Thank you kindly.

Im sorry I probably will never be in that position of working the jigsaw as you put it. Solving problems in battle is what I thrive on. If the vices don't get me first (Smoking and drinking...)

 

@8thnote if you don't mind me asking, how do you handle 25 trucks? I'm trying not to lose my head with 6...
I only work with load boards since I don't have any contracts with shippers (newbie here). What's your strategy to find loads on the boards? DO you use another tool rather than the board that helps you plan? I mean with 25 trucks you must do a lot of searches and it should take you a while to process all that info, compare and determine what's the best one for each case. Kudos to your operation!

 

When I had 30 souls to take charge of, all of them with different vehicles doing different things as the day rolled by on the crew in my responsibility, I divided the property into 4 cubes. Alpha is going to, Bravo is home, where I am or returning to me. Charlie is sort of free, detached duty under a different or bigger boss example packed in to a van going to collect cars 20 miles away. Delta is a core group with skills. If I had a vehicle catch fire during starting, this is the people I whistle for prior to putting out the fire call on the network radio. Certain things have to be done very fast to preserve as much as possible and keep people safe.

 

When you get into it with good brokers you hardly ever look for loads.

 

I do have my go to guys for certain lanes. I know that if I give them a couple days lead time, I can get them to cover loads without going through the hassle of hunting someone down on the boards.

 

So @PPDCT @BoostedTeg for you guys looking for loads or Load Planning is not a problem you're currently facing?
What would you say is the hardest part then, if it's not finding the right load?

 

I'm a broker, so not really part of your planning equation.

 

I have a guy that gets me loads he dispatches 22 trucks

 

It would be cool to hear his story and how he manages to pick the best loads for all its 22 trucks. Or at least to hear what he thinks are the major problems when planning.