Empty-mile ratio and cost
Share of miles driven empty, what they cost and the real revenue per mile driven.
Get this tool with its role plan
This is a premium tool. It comes with its role's plan: sign in, then add the role in Billing.
Comes with the fleet and rental manager plan: every tool for the role, from $10.20 a month at the launch price.
- Your own numbers, worked out as often as you like
- The full empty-mile report you can print or save to My work
- 5 cited sources, linked, with the checks to make
- Every other tool for the same role, in the same plan
- A plain-words read of your result (a fuller AI read with the Bifrost AI add-on)
Included in these role plans
Example result · fictional numbers
What you get: empty-mile report
Worked out by this tool from its default inputs. Its role plan lets you run your own numbers, print the sheet and save it.
17.9% empty, $3,485.00 a month ($41,820.00 a year); 2 backhauls a month close the gap and bring in $660.00 net a month
- Empty-mile ratio
- 17.9%
- Cost of empty miles
- $3,485
- Revenue per mile driven
- $2.381
- Margin per mile driven
- $0.331
- Saving at target ratio
- $1,148
Empty-mile statement (one month)
- Empty miles
- 1,700 miles of 9,500 miles, 17.9%
- Per truck
- 170 miles empty a month, $348.50
- Cost of empty miles
- $3,485.00 a month, $41,820.00 a year
- Diesel burned empty
- 250 gal, $962.50 ($11,550.00 a year)
- CO2 from empty miles
- 2.5 metric tons a month, 30.5 a year
Also on the sheet
- Against the yardsticks · 4 lines, starting with “Your target”
- Backhaul plan · 6 lines, starting with “Empty miles to fill”
- Rate per mile · 3 lines, starting with “Revenue per mile driven”
The plain-words read of this example
17.9% of the miles ran empty, costing $3,485.00 a month, about $41,820.00 a year, and burning 250 gallons of diesel. That is over ATRI's 16.7% for for-hire carriers and under NPTC's 28% for private fleets. Getting to your 12.0% target means filling 560 miles a month, about 2 backhauls, worth $13,776.00 a year in cost avoided. Any backhaul at $0.50 a loaded mile or more covers its extra cost, since the truck drives those miles anyway. Price outbound loads at no less than $2.497 a loaded mile.
5 cited sources
- New ATRI report shows trucking profitability severely squeezed by high costs, low rates (2025) (American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI))
- NPTC report digs into private fleets' backhaul activity (FleetOwner)
- Greenhouse Gas Emissions from a Typical Passenger Vehicle (CO2 per gallon of fuel) (US Environmental Protection Agency)
- Gasoline and Diesel Fuel Update (weekly on-highway prices) (US Energy Information Administration)
- Truck operating costs rose 3.4% in 2025, ATRI finds (Transport Topics)
Plus 5 step-by-step checks, a print layout and a link that reopens it with your numbers.