Swift Driver Routes

You're allowed 50 miles out of route.

By my 3rd solo run with them I was so fed up with their stupid back road routing to save 5 miles I started messaging my dispatcher back after they sent the route with the one I would take instead. Never heard any complaints from them about it.

 

Just do it and see what happens. Swift needs your ### in that truck, so unless you crash on your out of route journey no one will probably care.

unloader

 

Up to 16% out of route is allowed. More if you simply let your DM know in advance.

Example #1: winter run from LA to Pueblo, CO. The fuel route took me up I-15 to I-70 in Utah, then east to Grand Junction, then south and east on US-50. That route is bad enough in summer, but an insane choice in winter. I called my DM and let them know I was running east on I-40, then north on I-25. No problem at all.

Example #2: often a fuel route will require you to fuel up just before delivery. I frequently avoided that for two reasons. First, you may be on a tight schedule and fueling will delay your arrival with potential for service failure. Second, you may not yet have a load plan after your delivery. Sometimes you may get a load requiring you have 1/2 tanks or less or it can be a service failure on heavy loads.

Another reason to avoid a fuel stop is if they route you to the Salt Lake terminal or similar terminals that require you might wait in line for an hour or more for inspection.

Just bypass fuel stops you don't want, then use the free form message to "please reopt my fuel 3/8" for example (please reoptimize my fuel route, I have 3/8ths of a tank). Be aware when you do that the DM simply asks the computer to reoptimize the route. They don't control the results. Sometimes it will ask you to go backwards to a truck stop you already passed. In that case keep moving forward and reopt again after a few more miles.

 

Toward the end of my tenure at Swift I often went substantially out of route without prior notification of my DM. There's a trust factor. If I'm running from Nebraska to LA in the winter I opt for I-80 across Wyoming rather than I-70 through Colorado. Or I might change route significantly to avoid bad weather or a known road closure, like when I-80 was closed more than a day west of Laramie last Spring by a 40+ truck pileup.