Backhaul Trucking Facts

A backhaul is the return trip of a vehicle, as a truck

, transporting cargo or freight, esp. when carrying goods back over all or part of the same route. Backhauls can be a significant factor in reducing transport costs for ground freight. When a truck carries product to a destination, and then returns empty to its starting point, the cost for transport is nearly double the cost of merely sending the product to its destination.

When a manufacturer or distributor can find a way to bring a product back instead of having the truck make an empty backhaul, it's like sharing the transport cost with another distributor. In backhaul freight, you will put your items on a specific carrier, such as a truck, that will be able to take your freights on their way back from the destination that they came from. Since they are not necessarily making a complete stop for delivery, this type of shipping can save company money.

Some shipping companies will also have deals that allow you to find which shipments are leaving from your area, and can use the extra space on any of them as much as you want for your small business freights. For those that have consistent things that they need to ship, this is a good alternative in order to save money. There are also companies that are available as mediators between several shipping companies and small businesses.

If a carrier is driving down the road with no freight in their trailer, they are not making any money. This is known as a dead head. In our example above, a carrier may charge more for moving freight to a location like Florida due to their knowledge that there is not a lot of product being shipped out of that state.

Florida is known as a consumption state. They receive a lot of product into their state, but do not produce enough to keep the trucks leaving their state full. Therefore when a carrier has to take a load to this type of state, they will charge a higher cost per mile to compensate them for the likelihood of them having to drive a certain amount of miles without any freight to pick up the next load. If a carrier can find freight that needs to be moved out of the state of Florida, they are much more likely to move that at a reduced cost due to the large amount of trucks in the area that will agree to move the product cheap just to allow them to have freight loaded in their truck and allow them to generate revenues. This is known as backhaul.

by: Victoria Gates

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