You do not run at 3.10 a kilometre. You run at 4.19.
26% of the kilometres on this board earn nothing, and every cost they incur has to be carried by the ones that do. Cost per kilometre is the number everyone quotes. Cost per loaded kilometre is the number that decides whether a lane is worth running.
- 445,400 km
- run a month
- 115,698 km
- empty — 26% of the total
- 1.35×
- the cost per km you actually carry
- 23%
- of the empty running is unfixable
Which lanes are bleeding, and which can be fixed
Move the detour tolerance. Lanes turn as a backhaul becomes worth the deviation — except the ones with nothing coming back.
of 115,698 empty km recoverable — 173,104 SAR a month
Riyadh → Jeddah
950 km · 64/mo · 40 km detour
23,712 km empty · 39% of returns
Riyadh → Tabuk
1300 km · 14/mo · no return freight
14,924 km empty · 82% of returns
Riyadh → Abha
900 km · 19/mo · 130 km detour
13,509 km empty · 79% of returns
Riyadh → Hail
640 km · 27/mo · 95 km detour
12,269 km empty · 71% of returns
Jeddah → Jazan
710 km · 22/mo · no return freight
11,715 km empty · 75% of returns
Riyadh → Dammam
400 km · 88/mo · 25 km detour
9,856 km empty · 28% of returns
Jeddah → Madinah
420 km · 41/mo · 35 km detour
9,643 km empty · 56% of returns
Riyadh → Buraydah
320 km · 46/mo · 55 km detour
7,654 km empty · 52% of returns
Jeddah → Makkah
80 km · 104/mo · 20 km detour
5,158 km empty · 62% of returns
Riyadh → Al Kharj
80 km · 120/mo · 15 km detour
4,320 km empty · 45% of returns
Dammam → Jubail
90 km · 96/mo · 20 km detour
2,938 km empty · 34% of returns
60,071 km a month still runs empty at this tolerance, of which 26,639 km is structural. Structural means no return freight at any detour: a property of your customer geography, not a planning failure.
Bar width is the lane's monthly kilometres, so a short lane run often still shows up. Riyadh–Tabuk returns empty 82% of the time, which is the worst ratio on the board even though it is far from the largest lane.
Most of what you can fix, you can fix cheaply
A 40 km detour tolerance recovers 48% of the empty running. Stretching all the way to 130 km recovers 77% — a lot more deviation for a third as much again.
The shape matters more than the total. If the gains were spread evenly you would be arguing about how far to send drivers off-route. They are not: the dense corridors match almost immediately, and past that you are chasing thin lanes for diminishing money.
| Detour tolerance | Lanes matched | Empty km recovered | Share of empty | Net a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 km | 0/11 | 0 | 0% | — |
| 20 km | 3/11 | 12,416 | 11% | 33,682 SAR |
| 40 km | 6/11 | 55,627 | 48% | 173,104 SAR |
| 60 km | 7/11 | 63,282 | 55% | 195,051 SAR |
| 100 km | 8/11 | 75,550 | 65% | 231,119 SAR |
| 130 km | 9/11 | 89,059 | 77% | 271,001 SAR |
| 150 km | 9/11 | 89,059 | 77% | 271,001 SAR |
Net is backhaul revenue at 3.40 a loaded kilometre, less the detour driven at 3.10. Backhaul sells below the 5.60 headhaul rate because the buyer knows you are driving that road regardless, and pretending otherwise is how these business cases get overstated.
Past 130 km nothing further is recovered at any tolerance. The remaining 26,639 km sits on lanes where no southbound freight exists to carry, and that is a customer-geography problem rather than a planning one — the only honest lever is pricing the headhaul to cover it.
What long-haul actually uses
Line-haul has a different shape to every other fleet on this site: few vehicles, enormous distances, and a driver who is out of contact for two days at a time.
- Trailer tracking, separate from the tractor
- A tractor and its trailer part company constantly. Tracking only the powered unit means losing sight of the asset that is carrying the freight.
- Hours behind the wheel
- The constraint on a long lane is the driver, not the truck. Continuous driving time is what decides whether a backhaul is even legal to take.
- Wasl on every unit
- Haulage is the most heavily inspected segment there is, and a unit that stops reporting is a registration that quietly lapsed.
- Fuel over long legs
- At these distances a two per cent consumption difference between two drivers on the same lane is real money, and it is measurable.
- Proof of delivery that ties to the trip
- A signature that is not bound to a location and a time is not evidence when a customer disputes the drop.
- Cost per lane, not per truck
- The reporting that matters here is by lane and by customer. Per-vehicle averages hide exactly the thing this page is about.
Where this model is optimistic
Backhaul arithmetic is easy to make look better than the freight market allows. These are the four things that shrink it.
- A matched backhaul is not a free backhaul
- It sells below headhaul rate because the buyer knows you are driving that road anyway, and it costs you loading time at both ends. The number here is the margin after the detour, not the freight value.
- Some lanes have nothing coming back
- No amount of software creates southbound freight where none exists. Those kilometres are a property of your customer geography, and the only real lever is pricing the headhaul to carry them.
- Timing kills more matches than distance
- A load available tomorrow on a lane you ran today is not a match. The detour figures here assume the freight is there when you are; in practice a share of it will not be.
- Trailer type constrains it further
- A reefer cannot take dry freight home and a flatbed cannot take palletised. The more specialised the equipment, the thinner the return market gets.
Take the 173,104 a month at 40 km as a ceiling rather than a forecast. The durable value is not the matching — it is knowing that 329,702 of your 445,400 km are the ones earning, and pricing accordingly.