Landstar - Answers to Questions

I got a PM from a forum member here who had some questions about how Landstar works. Since I haven't acculmulated enough posts to be able to PM on this forum, I figured that I'd post it here in case others had some of the same questions.

Questions:

-Do you have to have your own plates?
-I have an unregistered truck - can I sign up with it just like it is?
-Do they get your plates and permits for you?
-Do you have to put up money up front?
-Do they have an orientation?
-I got their information packet and it included some copies off the load list. Are those prices on the load list what the truck gets or do you have to take their percentages off those prices?

Answers:

Yes, they have an orientation. It last for 2 days, and is in various locations around the country. You have to provide your own way there. They put you up for one night in a motel, and provide lunch both days. You can either driver your rig there or go in your four-wheeler.

The plates and permits work in one of two ways. You can get your own plates or you can let Landstar do it for you. If you do it yourself, it will probably cost around $2200 for the apportioning and everything, depending on what state you live in. If you let Landstar do it for you, your truck will be registered in Illinois and costs $1850/yr, which they take out of your weekly settlements over a 7 month period, but doesn't begin until the 6th week that you are with them to help you get going without too many expenses.

You don't have to have any money up front to get started. However, it would be wise to have enough savings to cover any breakdowns that might happen while you're getting your feet wet.

As far as the load board goes, if you see a load for example, that is 2500 miles for 5000.00, that $5000 is the gross line haul before Landstar gets their cut. I'll use a flatbed for this example. You get 75% of 98%, which is the same as saying that you get 73.5% of the gross, which is easier to calculate when you are in a hurry. The loads are listed in one of two ways. It will either say $5000 with no additional comments (or $5000 FSC incl). When you see this, you need to tell the agent that you want the FSC and the LH (linehaul) itemized. You want to do this because you get 100% of the FSC, but only 73.5% of the LH. So, the math would work like this if the FSC that week was .32 CPM:

Gross - $5000
LH - $4200
FSC - $800
TTT (To The Truck) - $3087 ($4200 x 73.5%) + $800 FSC = $3887 TTT

$3887 divided by 2500 miles = $1.55 TTT

They will also give you up to a 30% advance on the LH on your fuel card as soon as you accept the load, plus 100% of the FSC, so your maximum advance would look like this: $1260 ($4200 x 30%) + $800 FSC = $2060

Always remember to have the FSC broken out of the LH. In the example above, if you didn't do this, your TTT would only be $3675 ($5000 x 73.5%) instead of $3887

The other way that you will see loads listed is "+fsc". When you see this, using the example above, the math would be as follows:

Gross - $5000 + $800 FSC
LH - $5000
FSC - $800
TTT (To The Truck) - $3675 ($5000 x 73.5%) + $800 FSC = $4475 TTT

$4475 divided by 2500 miles = $1.79 TTT



Hope this helps.