XTRA Lease News

Driver and XTRA Lease Ops talking next to white Freightliner on XTRA Lease yard

4 Ways Trailer Tracking Can Eliminate Driver Misses

Driver misses—the wild goose chases truck drivers must endure when trailers go missing—hurt driver morale, decrease loads per week, and increase fuel and maintenance costs. See how harmful driver misses are to trucking, and how to eliminate them with trailer tracking technology.

Time is money. Fleet managers understand that better than almost anyone. The key to getting ahead in the trucking industry is to make your operations more efficient and maximize loads per week, while minimizing overhead.

But one all-too-common truck driver nightmare may be standing in the way of your fleet’s profitability: driver misses. When you tell a driver to pick up a certain trailer at a specific location, and the driver arrives only to find the trailer isn’t where it was supposed to be, that’s a driver miss. And it forces your driver to go on a wild goose chase to track the missing trailer down, wasting time in the process.

4 Ways Driver Misses Hurt Your Bottom Line

Here are four ways driver misses hurt your bottom line, and what you can do to eliminate them.

  1. Driver misses harm revenue by reducing loads per week.

    Without a trailer tracking solution, a driver miss can easily waste hours of your driver's time. The driver often has to review a spreadsheet to triangulate where the missing equipment might be, then communicate with dispatch. Dispatch tells the driver where the trailer was last seen, and then it’s on the driver to hunt that trailer down. From there, it’s a guessing game. If you’re lucky, the equipment may be in the wrong spot in the right yard, but even then the driver has to comb the lot to track down the trailer. If driver misses happen often to your business, you’re not just killing productivity for one driver (and one dispatcher) for one day. You could be losing thousands of dollars in potential revenue because inefficient processes and inadequate technology cut into your loads per week.

  2. Driver misses make it harder to retain drivers. 

    Drivers often have to use their knowledge of the local area to track down trailer locations, considering nearby yards and past experiences to make a hypothesis as to where the missing equipment ended up. Hours of service requirements make this detective work even more frustrating, as your driver may run out of time before completing the job. HOS and accumulated hours limit what the driver is able to do once the trailer is located. Time spent in a yard driving around looking for equipment is time on the clock not spent moving loads. This impacts the driver’s HOS reset and ability to make money. It’s hard to weather the current driver shortage if you can’t hold on to the drivers you already have. Trailer tracking technology can make your drivers’ jobs easier. It gives them greater trust in your processes and allows them to focus on the road, instead of playing hide-and-seek with their trailers.

  3. Driver misses can blow a hole in fuel and maintenance budgets. 

    If an employee routinely has to deadhead an hour to the next yard to locate a missing trailer, it goes without saying that your fuel expenses will increase. And your trucks will incur far more wear and tear, requiring more maintenance and repairs.

  4. You may risk losing contracts to competitors that use trailer tracking technology. 

    Not only do driver misses reduce your loads per week, drive up fuel and maintenance costs, and infuriate your drivers, but they also put you at a competitive disadvantage. Without the technology and operational efficiencies to keep up with modern standards, you may lose contracts to one of your competitors. Imagine your driver shows up late to a delivery because it took hours to locate a lost trailer. What would keep your customer from switching to another trucking company with more reliable processes, especially if you had to pass the added costs of inefficiency on to the client?

There’s a simple way to avoid driver misses and maximize your runs per week. Use trailer tracking.

Driver misses aren’t inevitable. When you know where your assets are at all times, you can streamline your operations, reduce your costs, and gain the efficiency you need to increase loads per week.


This post was originally published at skybitz.com.

A little insight can go a long way. Check out these links for some practical tips:

Driver and XTRA Lease Ops talking next to white Freightliner on XTRA Lease yard

4 Ways Trailer Tracking Can Eliminate Driver Misses

Driver misses—the wild goose chases truck drivers must endure when trailers go missing—hurt driver morale, decrease loads per week, and increase fuel and maintenance costs. See how harmful driver misses are to trucking, and how to eliminate them with trailer tracking technology.

Time is money. Fleet managers understand that better than almost anyone. The key to getting ahead in the trucking industry is to make your operations more efficient and maximize loads per week, while minimizing overhead.

But one all-too-common truck driver nightmare may be standing in the way of your fleet’s profitability: driver misses. When you tell a driver to pick up a certain trailer at a specific location, and the driver arrives only to find the trailer isn’t where it was supposed to be, that’s a driver miss. And it forces your driver to go on a wild goose chase to track the missing trailer down, wasting time in the process.

4 Ways Driver Misses Hurt Your Bottom Line

Here are four ways driver misses hurt your bottom line, and what you can do to eliminate them.

  1. Driver misses harm revenue by reducing loads per week.

    Without a trailer tracking solution, a driver miss can easily waste hours of your driver's time. The driver often has to review a spreadsheet to triangulate where the missing equipment might be, then communicate with dispatch. Dispatch tells the driver where the trailer was last seen, and then it’s on the driver to hunt that trailer down. From there, it’s a guessing game. If you’re lucky, the equipment may be in the wrong spot in the right yard, but even then the driver has to comb the lot to track down the trailer. If driver misses happen often to your business, you’re not just killing productivity for one driver (and one dispatcher) for one day. You could be losing thousands of dollars in potential revenue because inefficient processes and inadequate technology cut into your loads per week.

  2. Driver misses make it harder to retain drivers. 

    Drivers often have to use their knowledge of the local area to track down trailer locations, considering nearby yards and past experiences to make a hypothesis as to where the missing equipment ended up. Hours of service requirements make this detective work even more frustrating, as your driver may run out of time before completing the job. HOS and accumulated hours limit what the driver is able to do once the trailer is located. Time spent in a yard driving around looking for equipment is time on the clock not spent moving loads. This impacts the driver’s HOS reset and ability to make money. It’s hard to weather the current driver shortage if you can’t hold on to the drivers you already have. Trailer tracking technology can make your drivers’ jobs easier. It gives them greater trust in your processes and allows them to focus on the road, instead of playing hide-and-seek with their trailers.

  3. Driver misses can blow a hole in fuel and maintenance budgets. 

    If an employee routinely has to deadhead an hour to the next yard to locate a missing trailer, it goes without saying that your fuel expenses will increase. And your trucks will incur far more wear and tear, requiring more maintenance and repairs.

  4. You may risk losing contracts to competitors that use trailer tracking technology. 

    Not only do driver misses reduce your loads per week, drive up fuel and maintenance costs, and infuriate your drivers, but they also put you at a competitive disadvantage. Without the technology and operational efficiencies to keep up with modern standards, you may lose contracts to one of your competitors. Imagine your driver shows up late to a delivery because it took hours to locate a lost trailer. What would keep your customer from switching to another trucking company with more reliable processes, especially if you had to pass the added costs of inefficiency on to the client?

There’s a simple way to avoid driver misses and maximize your runs per week. Use trailer tracking.

Driver misses aren’t inevitable. When you know where your assets are at all times, you can streamline your operations, reduce your costs, and gain the efficiency you need to increase loads per week.


This post was originally published at skybitz.com.

A little insight can go a long way. Check out these links for some practical tips:

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