How to reduce empty Miles in UK Haulage and find Backloads faster

A problem many carriers and hauliers will be familiar with is empty miles. When you deliver your goods to a destination, your vehicle must go back to its original destination empty. Empty miles mean wasted fuel, higher carbon emissions, and tighter margins.

We discuss how you can avoid empty runs in road freight logistics and improve your business. TIMOCOM can help to avoid empty runs by helping carriers and hauliers find truck loads through the TIMOCOM Road Freight Marketplace.

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What are empty miles in trucking?

Empty runs, empty miles or dead hauling are trips by a transport vehicle without any freight loaded. In the UK from 2022 to 2024, the overall empty running rates were 30%, meaning one in three kilometres travelled by UK trucks involved an empty vehicle.

What are backloads?

Backloads or return loads mean that when the goods (load) are delivered at their destination, new freight is now loaded, which is returned to the place of departure. HGV backloads prevent logistics companies from doing empty runs. Searching for backloads in the UK is one of the most common ways hauliers optimise fleet utilisation.

How to calculate empty miles?

You may not realise how much empty miles or dead miles are eating into your margins, so calculating any empty miles can help you optimise your operations. You probably have software that tells you how far you have travelled without freight. Once you know this figure, subtract the load miles from the total miles travelled. You must also include the ‘hidden costs’ such as fuel, labour, and maintenance.

The resulting figure is how many empty miles you are travelling. When you do this for each vehicle, the cost to your business could be high.

These empty vehicles are deducting from your revenue, but they can be avoided.

How empty runs impact your logistics business

By undertaking empty runs, you are increasing your costs, along with other causing other issues for your business.

High operating costs

When your fleet undertakes an empty run, it means there is no revenue being earned from that trip, but you still have those costs. The cost of labour, the cost of wear and tear on vehicles, and fuel costs.

With rising fuel costs due to the current disruption, this is an even bigger problem than before. There has been an increase of 44% in diesel prices from oil volatility, with one Welsh haulage operator reporting it’s adding £64,000 a week to its fuel bill.  

In another case, empty running accounted for up to £5,800 with driver costs and up to £5,700 per unit in certain scenarios.

With this cost significantly impacting hauliers, empty mileage will have an even bigger impact on margins than previously.

Environmental impact of empty runs

The transport sector and road freight contribute significantly to carbon emissions. There is increasing pressure and legislation on the logistics sector to reduce their emissions by around 20% by 2030. Empty runs add to carbon emissions because vehicles are still burning fuel, producing almost the same emissions as a fully loaded vehicle, but without any economic value. Empty runs also mean the total emissions are spread across fewer delivered goods.

Not only do empty runs raise your carbon emissions, but they can also damage your reputation and be off-putting to investors.

Capacity shortages

Empty runs mean the amount of usable transport capacity in the system is reduced. If a vehicle is travelling without backloads, it creates an artificial shortage of available capacity. That vehicle is still unavailable for other jobs, decreasing the total number of deliveries, and driver hours are being used inefficiently.

When flexibility is key to running efficiently, empty runs reduce this because when demand spikes, fleets are unavailable.

How to avoid empty runs

There are several solutions to reducing empty miles and making your operation more cost-effective and more resilient to economic shocks.

Finding backloads is the best way for reducing empty running by trucks, but there are other strategies for reducing empty miles in trucking operations.

Find backloads on a freight exchange

By finding backload solutions, you are ensuring you are utilising all the space you have to maximise profits. A report found that by trimming 1% of empty miles from one long haul truck, you could save over £450 in fuel. By collaborative shipping with other businesses, consolidating smaller shipments through Less Than Truckload (LTL), and building relationships with vetted partners, you can find backloads, which gives you lower costs per mile.

Finding partners on a haulage exchange is the best choice because partners are vetted. With TIMOCOM’s freight exchange, you can find UK backloads, either partial or complete loads or offer your vehicle space. This helps you to build relationships and expand your market. It also helps with driver retention as they prefer to have optimised schedules.

Route optimisation

By optimising routes, it means you can budget accordingly and find a backload that matches your route.

You can incorporate multistep routing, which means your vehicle is consistently filled with cargo along the route to minimise empty runs.

Route optimisation helps in many ways, including understanding what is happening in real-time, so if there are delays, you can react quickly. It helps you keep costs down, and the transparency also helps to improve customer service because you can ensure faster turnaround times and provide a reliable service.

Forecasting

Using data to optimise your processes can significantly improve your efficiency. By using data to forecast freight demand, you can ensure you are making the most of that demand and also reduce empty running costs.

Sustainability

By reducing empty runs, you will improve your sustainability by reducing carbon emissions. It will help you comply with legislation and make you more attractive to investors. Implementing sustainability also helps to improve your reputation, as consumers are increasingly choosing companies that are mindful of this.

Communication

Good communication is essential to avoiding empty runs and finding backloads. Communicating with partners to find the right backloads when you need them will help to optimise your operations.

How TIMOCOM can help you find backloads

TIMOCOM’s freight exchange supports you in finding vetted partners throughout Europe and the UK. You can find available loads for vans or offer vehicle space to more than 58,000 verified companies. An Italian start-up company GreenRouter, showed that by using TIMOCOM, vehicle utilisation rates increased by 30% and saw a 15% profit increase by avoiding empty runs.

Vetted partners

Social media is often used to find backloads but without any regulation or security, this could cause a lot of problems. If you are trying to find return loads on Facebook, how do you know if these people or companies are legit? With TIMOCOM, you can be sure the companies you deal with are above board because they are vetted beforehand. TIMOCOM also supports security when using the Marketplace by using a two-factor authentication and legally binding transport orders. For example, after you have negotiated and selected your preferred partner, you can confirm the transaction directly in the TIMOCOM Marketplace, either via a Deal or via a legally binding Transport Order. This means that confirmation happens without detours via email, and you are better protected against fraud and misunderstandings.

Communication

We also recommend you to use TIMOCOM’s Messenger to ensure secure and efficient communication with other companies on the TIMOCOM Road Freight Marketplace. TIMOCOM Messenger protects all messages and data in accordance with the TIMOCOM Marketplace standards and thus promotes confidentiality and security. You can control who has access to the communication and you can be sure that your contact has a registered TIMOCOM account. 

Empty runs can significantly impact your business, so by joining TIMOCOM's network, you can reduce these and maximise your revenue. If you want to find backloads and turn your unused capacity into profit, then start testing the Marketplace today.

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