🇺🇸United States

Excess transport cost from inefficient routing and ‘empty miles’

2 verified sources

Definition

Without optimized delivery and pickup scheduling, trucks run inefficient routes, backtrack, and make partially empty trips, inflating fuel, labor, and vehicle wear. Transportation management tools targeted at equipment rental explicitly promise to maximize driver hours and reduce empty miles compared to the status quo of chaotic, manual dispatch.

Key Findings

  • Financial Impact: Wynne’s logistics solution markets reduced empty miles and maximized driver hours as core benefits, indicating that pre-software operations experience significant waste.[4] For a fleet of 10 trucks at $90/hour all-in, saving even 1 avoidable driving hour per truck per day through better scheduling equates to ~$18,000/month in avoided transport cost.
  • Frequency: Daily
  • Root Cause: Lack of centralized scheduling, no visual route planning, and limited GPS visibility lead dispatchers to assign jobs one-by-one instead of logically sequenced routes; pickups and deliveries are not batched or paired, so trucks frequently deadhead between sites or branches.[3][4]

Why This Matters

This pain point represents a significant opportunity for B2B solutions targeting Commercial and Industrial Equipment Rental.

Affected Stakeholders

Dispatchers, Transport/operations managers, Drivers, Fleet managers, Finance / cost controllers

Deep Analysis (Premium)

Financial Impact

$12,000-18,000/month in transport/logistics costs embedded in rental invoices (delivery coordination between facilities, empty pickups, redundant equipment due to poor visibility) • $12,000-18,000/month in wasted transport costs (empty return miles between venue dispersed locations, backtracking for missed pickups) • $14,000-20,000/month in transport waste (unoptimized routing between dispersed event venues, empty return trips between locations, redundant trips due to poor scheduling)

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Current Workarounds

Branch Manager reviews cost reports, questions coordinator on routes verbally, receives explanations about driver experience and site conditions, no systematic improvement • Coordinator builds Excel route list by event location, prints morning of event, drivers improvise consolidation on-site when venues delayed • Coordinator builds route lists in Excel, prints them morning of, drivers coordinate on-site when venues not ready, improvise consolidation manually

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Methodology & Sources

Data collected via OSINT from regulatory filings, industry audits, and verified case studies.

Evidence Sources:

Related Business Risks

Overtime and labor inefficiency from last‑minute, manual scheduling

While vendors do not quote overtime dollars directly, a modest scenario where 5 drivers incur 5 hours of overtime weekly at $45/hour due to poor scheduling equals ~$4,500/month in extra labor, which specialized dispatch boards aim to remove.[3][4]

Lost rental days from delayed pickups tying up billable equipment

Wynne Systems notes that delayed pickups tie up equipment that could be earning revenue, implying loss of billable days across the fleet; for a mid-size rental fleet with 200 heavy units at $350/day, even 2 lost billable days per unit per month equates to ~$140,000/month in unrealized revenue.[4]

Unbilled deliveries, pickups, and accessorial transport charges

Texada highlights that integrated rental management and accounting reduce errors from double entry and manual edits; in similar rental case examples, customers typically save tens of hours of admin time and capture more billable services, which for a branch running 40 deliveries/pickups a day could easily amount to several thousand dollars per month of previously unbilled trips and fees.[1][4]

Rework and customer compensation from late or failed deliveries

If even 2% of deliveries per 1,000 monthly orders require an unplanned second trip (driver + truck at $180 per run) and a $100 goodwill credit, that equals ~$7,600/month in avoidable rework and compensation; the push for better logistics tools exists precisely because of this recurring waste.[4]

Delayed invoicing due to slow capture of delivery and pickup confirmations

EZRentOut and Texada both emphasize automation of bookings, invoicing, and use of mobile apps to capture delivery/pickup confirmations; EZRentOut reports clients saving ~30 hours weekly and increasing turnaround by 25%, reflecting much faster order closure and therefore earlier cash collection.[1][5] For a branch billing $1M/month, even a 3–5 day acceleration in invoicing meaningfully improves working-capital cost.

Idle fleet capacity from slow turnaround between pickup and next delivery

EZRentOut reports clients increasing equipment turnaround by 25% through better tracking and scheduling, indicating substantial prior delays in getting returned assets back into rent-ready status.[5] For a $10M fleet targeting 65% utilization, a 25% faster turnaround can unlock hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional annual revenue opportunity that is otherwise lost capacity.

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