Drop and hook

You can live load or do drop and hook. You don't have to do either one exclusively, or did I miss the meaning of your post?

 

Speaking in terms of van trailers, you would likely only ever do any drop and hook loads if pulling a Landstar company owned van trailer. You would need to own multiple trailers of your own to do the same, which would not be cost effective in almost any circumstance, and very limited opportunities with an agent to do so. If using your own single trailer to load, you will be doing live load/unload all the time. Not necessarily a bad thing depending on who and/or where you are pulling loads for/to.

Start out using a Landstar trailer and see if having your own trailer and keeping an extra 7% of the line haul revenue will be worth the trade off of not doing any drop and hook loads. The agents who are a “direct shipper” (the agent has a freight contract directly with the shipper) are who you will mostly see have the drop and hook freight, which also usually pays much more too. At any given time only about 15-20% of the loads on the Landstar board are actually ‘direct shipper” loads. At the time of this post there are currently 20,706 van loads and only 3425 are “direct shipper” loads on Landstar’s board. That is only 16.5%.

In my case, using a Landstar trailer makes more sense with the agents I am using for my lane hauling auto parts and LTL freight that are drop and hook on both ends. It really comes down to where you live and where you will want to run. What works for me here in Texas would be different for someone else in a different place.

 

How well any load pays depends on the location, destination, and agent. The Pensacola area of Florida has better paying freight compared to South Florida. Wherever there are more trucks than loads equals lower rates. More loads than trucks equals higher rates. This is just supply and demand. At the time of this post there are 25 loads in the Pensacola area paying at least $2.00 per mile and above. If needed, take a short load to an area with higher paying freight. You don’t need to only focus on the highest paying freight. Look more at the average rate par mile of several loads together if needed. Once you establish a good relationship with an agent(s), you will find them calling you instead of you calling them!

 

I do a lot of drop and hooks and they are all landstar loads except for the line hauls so they generally pay better than the brokered loads, i only do double brokered loads when absolutely necessary . it does

 

I dont have too much trouble getting out and too the pan handle. .. i live in Ohio and generally speaking it pays better east of 35 north of 20 and west of 79 .... for me it wouldn't pay for me to get a trailer for what I do , I would have to give up to many loads and you can still do the loads the guys who have their own trailers do at less $ ..... my suggestion would be to start out with a company van and see how it works out for you if you are not doing very many drop and hooks you would be better off with your own trailers , I do about half drop and hooks and a good amount of them dont ever make it to the load board ....... dont do drop in Laredo its a drop and wait .....