How-to
Deadhead miles: what they cost and how to cut them
Every chauffeur job has miles nobody pays for directly. The car drives from base to the pickup empty, and after the drop-off it drives back empty or on to the next job. Those are deadhead miles, also called empty miles or dead miles.
What a deadhead mile costs
A deadhead mile costs about the same as a paid mile: fuel, tyres, servicing and depreciation, and the driver's time if you pay drivers by the hour. The difference is that nobody is paying for it on the invoice unless your price was built to cover it.
The first step is to count them. Split the miles your vehicles drive in a month into paid miles and empty miles. Your cost per paid mile is your total cost divided by the paid miles only, which is always higher than the cost per mile across all miles. If you price from the lower number, deadhead quietly eats the margin.
Decide when your price includes them
There are two common ways to cover empty travel:
- build it into the rate, so the rate per paid mile is high enough to absorb a normal amount of empty driving;
- charge it explicitly for jobs far from your base, as a positioning or garage-to-garage charge.
Whichever you choose, apply it the same way every time and say so in the quote. In 4fleet's setup you decide whether prices include the empty drive from your base to the pickup and from the drop-off back to base, and quotes are priced with that choice.
Plan the day to cut them
Pricing covers deadhead; planning reduces it. The biggest savings come from the order of the day:
- give a driver jobs where one drop-off is near the next pickup;
- avoid sending a car back to base between two jobs in the same area;
- for a long one-way job, look for a return job near the destination, or a partner based there.
A dispatch board that shows the empty travel to each pickup and back makes these chains visible. In 4fleet's Dispatch board, a job's block includes the empty travel to the pickup and back to base when those times are known, so overlapping or wasteful sequences stand out before the day starts.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
Are deadhead miles the same as empty miles?
Yes. Deadhead, empty and dead miles all mean miles driven without a passenger, usually to reach a pickup or return to base.
Should I show deadhead as a separate charge?
Only for jobs far from your base. For local work many operators build it into the rate, because a separate line on every short job invites questions.
How do I know how many deadhead miles I drive?
Record paid and empty miles separately for each vehicle, for example with a mileage log that splits them per job, and compare them over a month.
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