Free Deadhead & Empty Miles Log

Any mile the unit runs without a revenue load on it: from a drop to the next pickup, from the yard out to the first shipper, back in from the last receiver, and bobtail moves to and from the shop. Separating them by reason matters, because a shop run and a missing backhaul are both empty miles but only one of them is a lane problem.

A mileage log and a trip sheet record distance per trip; neither splits that distance by whether it was earning. Once empty has its own column, a lane that reads as $2.40 per loaded mile can turn out to be well under $2.00 across every mile the truck actually had to run — and the second figure is the one your cost per mile is computed against.

It depends entirely on lane mix, equipment type and whether you have a backhaul network, so a published benchmark is only a sanity check on the arithmetic. What this log is for is your own trend by unit and by lane over time, because that is the number you can actually change.

Whatever the lease says. For equipment leased to an authorised carrier, 49 CFR 376.12(e) requires the written lease to clearly specify which party is responsible for the cost of empty mileage, alongside fuel, fuel taxes, permits, tolls, ferries, detention and accessorial services, and base plates. Check the lease rather than assuming — and log the miles either way, because the allocation gets applied to a mileage figure someone has to produce.