Line hauls and tankers and BOLs, oh my! The transportation industry has a lot of lingo. As a shipper, if trucking isn’t your first language, you might struggle to keep up in conversations with your carrier.
Headhaul vs. Backhaul
Headhaul and backhaul are transportation industry terms used to describe loads and markets.
Traditionally, a headhaul was defined as a load headed to its destination, while a backhaul is a return trip back on the same route. Nice and easy, right?
Well, these days we have slightly more sophisticated definitions.
What is a Headhaul?
A headhaul market is one in which there is more outbound freight than inbound freight and pays a higher rate per mile (RPM).
What is a Backhaul?
A backhaul market has more inbound freight and pays a lower RPM than it does outbound.
Why Does Headhaul vs. Backhaul Matter?
For truckers, the practical difference between a headhaul and a backhaul is simply “Which one pays more per mile?”
Whichever leg of the journey is more profitable for the driver in terms of RPM is the headhaul; the remaining leg is the backhaul.
Backhauls are less profitable for carriers because of the lighter demand for their services out of that market. We’ll dive deeper into that in a moment.
For shippers, these terms matter because the nature of each market (headhaul vs. backhaul) is a significant determining factor in your freight rate.
But before we get to the all-important money conversation, there’s also a third term we need to cover: Deadhead.
What is Deadhead?
“Deadhead” or “deadheading” describes any time a truck is traveling with no load.
Ideally, a driver would always have a new load to pick up in the immediate vicinity of their headhaul delivery and again on the subsequent drop-off, but this isn’t always possible.
Deadheading commonly happens when trucks are traveling to a destination to start a headhaul trip. Deadheading is also common on return trips following headhaul deliveries.
Carriers avoid deadheading as if it were the plague, and for good reason. Deadheading represents a loss of revenue for carriers.
Think of it as a sort of purgatory between loads. With nothing to carry, the carrier is no longer providing a service for any customer, so the time spent traveling is essentially unpaid labor.
Deadheading can also be dangerous — an unloaded truck weighs about half as much as a loaded one. When trucks are not weighed down by a load, they can become hazardous in inclement weather.
