One in Six Miles Earns $0
TL;DR
The average U.S. truckload carrier ran 16.7% of its miles empty in 2024, roughly one in six. That costs an estimated $27B to $54B a year industry-wide and about $37,000 per truck. This paper argues empty miles are an architectural choice rather than an inevitability, and that load boards, digital freight matching, and AI routing keep failing because they optimize inside the design that creates the waste.
Key findings
- The average U.S. truckload carrier drove 16.7% of its miles empty in 2024, nearly one in six, with unfiltered rates across fleet types running between 15% and 35%.
- Deadhead costs an estimated $27B to $54B a year industry-wide, and about $37,000 per truck per year for a 100,000-mile truck running 20% empty. Across a 50-truck fleet that is roughly $1.85M a year.
- The waste compounds a margin problem: non-fuel operating costs hit a record $1.779 per mile in 2024 while the average truckload operating margin was negative 2.3%.
- Every fix tried so far, load boards, digital freight matching, and AI routing, reduces deadhead only at the margin, because each optimizes the individual load rather than the driver route as a closed loop.
- Relay networks build matched backhauls into the route structure before the driver departs, moving deadhead from a default condition to an exception and lifting asset utilization from roughly 65% to 80% or more.
By the numbers
In their own words
The people closest to the problem, quoted throughout the paper.
“Deadhead is the silent killer in trucking operations. It does not show up on rate confirmations.”
“The waste persists because those tools optimize the wrong unit: the individual route leg rather than the full trip cycle.”
“If you are above 15% deadhead, it is time to have a serious conversation about routing and planning.”
Methodology
This paper synthesizes public industry data rather than proprietary carrier records. Deadhead rates, per-mile operating costs, and margin figures come from ATRI operational cost benchmarking, with supporting figures from REPOWR, OOIDA, PCS Software, Wezom, and Locus. Where a figure is a Lanework calculation rather than a published statistic, it is labeled as such.
The industry-wide cost range is built from an estimated 54 billion or more empty miles driven annually, multiplied by $0.50 to $1.00 of fully loaded cost per mile net of fuel saved. Per-truck figures assume a 100,000-mile year at a 20% deadhead rate. Relay utilization comparisons are Lanework estimates benchmarked against ATRI over-the-road utilization averages, not audited carrier results.
FAQs
What counts as a deadhead mile?+
Any mile a truck drives without revenue-generating freight aboard, most often repositioning between a delivery and the next pickup. It still burns fuel, wages, insurance, and equipment life.
How much does deadhead actually cost?+
Roughly $27B to $54B a year across the U.S. industry, and about $37,000 per truck per year for a truck running 100,000 miles at a 20% empty rate. Across a 50-truck fleet that is about $1.85M a year.
Why have load boards and AI matching not solved it?+
Because they optimize the wrong unit. They find a load for a truck that is already empty and already out of position, which helps at the margin but leaves the architecture that created the empty mile untouched. Reported gains land in the 10% to 45% range and do not close the gap.
How do relay networks change the math?+
Relay breaks a long haul into regional segments and designs the backhaul into the route before the driver departs, so the return leg is planned rather than hunted. That moves deadhead from a default condition to an exception and lifts asset utilization from roughly 65% to 80% or more.
What deadhead rate should a carrier target?+
Industry guidance treats anything above 15% as a routing and planning problem. The 2024 average was 16.7%, so most carriers sit above the line where network design needs attention.