Deadhead miles cost a carrier fuel, wear, driver hours, and tolls while producing no revenue, so they dilute the effective rate on the loads that surround them. A dispatcher evaluating a load looks at the loaded rate and the deadhead required to start it together, not separately.
Some deadhead is unavoidable: freight does not always originate where the last delivery ended, and a truck has to reposition to stay in a lane with volume. The goal is not zero deadhead but keeping the empty percentage low enough that the loaded miles still clear the truck’s cost per mile with margin.
Deadhead is measured as a percentage of total miles — empty miles divided by loaded plus empty miles. Long-haul dry van operations commonly run in the low-to-mid teens; a number climbing toward 25–30% usually points to weak backhaul coverage or lanes chosen without a plan for the return.
Example
A truck delivers in Columbus, OH, and the next paying load picks up in Cincinnati, 110 miles away. Those 110 empty miles are deadhead. If the Cincinnati load pays $1,000 for 600 loaded miles, the carrier is really earning $1,000 for 710 miles of running — about $1.41 per mile, not $1.67.
Why it matters
Deadhead decides whether a load that looks profitable actually is. Dispatchers who price and accept loads on loaded miles alone routinely take work that loses money once the repositioning is counted.
In Trailflow, this shows up in routing and mileage.