Need help with figuring power only rate.

I agree that time is the key dynamic, but "knowing your numbers" and "looking at your numbers" is little help with figuring out the costs.

Example. You get two loads a week.

Case one: One on Wednesday evening and one of Friday evening. The Friday one gets you home Monday. You have to work every weekend and you have to drive nights and during rush hour to make the appountments. Loading and unloading takes hours.

Case two: you get one load Monday morning first thing, and one Wednesday morning, first thing, and you can run them during the day, and loading and unloading happens while you're getting the paperwork.

Same amount of hours, same amount of miles -- most certainly not the same costs. You will have to pay more for the labor in the first example. If you blow a tire, a call out will be more expensive. If you need anything during the trip, it will be more expensive. Statistically, your accident rate will be higher, so you'll end up paying more for down time and, eventually, insurance. Because you have rush hour traffic, fuel and wear and tear increase.

It's not just quantity of the numbers, it's the quality of the numbers. Downtime, labor factors, including retention, all come into play. And that is just one hypothetical example.

 

Your talking the same amount of miles... but not the same amount of hours, when your dealing with rush hour. I gotta admit, I never deal with rush hour, I can almost always plan around it. But, if you deal with rush hour often, I would assume that you have a pretty good idea how much longer that's going to take you.

If you are worried about blowing a tire, or needing anything along the way... Isn't that either a maintenance issue that should have been taken care of earlier? Or a rarity that shouldn't be an issue as long as your not running for the broken peanuts at the bottom of the barrel to start with? I believe I've blown 2 tires in the last 30 years...

 

You're still focused on the quantity, and ignoring the quality. If you've only blown two tires in the last 30 years, I'm jealous. I've blown three in the last 12 months. Two broken chain links and a screw picked up somewhere. Virgin tires, all. Doesn't matter what the rate is, a blown tire or busted air hose, or whatever, they happen, and no, proper maintenance doesn't prevent all problems. If they happen in town during the day, it's simply a different problem than if they happen in Tonopah at 3 a.m.

And it really doesn't matter how long the run takes due to rush hour; your truck isn't going to make any more revenue if it can go faster, it's committed to the schedule. It's not going to make or miss another load. There is no opportunity cost. Your truck DOESN'T charge by the hour, and your driver gets paid by the mile.

That's why this "look at your numbers" suggestion is so destructive; your numbers are based on the number of miles your current job takes. You can substitute hours or come up with a combined formula; but on quotes like this you cannot MAXIMIZE nor COMPARE either miles or hours. You have to look at the situation you are looking at quoting, evaluate monthly fixed costs and operational variable costs and base your cost estimate off that, not on what the last job cost.

 

What would you charge to do it with your own trailer ? What kind of trailer is it pulling . Does this shipper want to use their trailers because it convenient for them or are you begging to use their because you don’t have your own or capital ton get your own ?