What are empty miles?
Empty miles (also called deadhead miles, empty kilometres or non-revenue kilometres) are the distance a vehicle travels without paid cargo on board. The truck is moving, fuel is burning, the driver is paid, CO₂ is emitted — but no customer is paying for that distance.
In European road transport, empty mileage typically sits between 20% and 30% of total distance driven. Every percentage point you cut from that goes straight to the bottom line.
When do empty miles happen?
- Repositioning – driving from the depot to the first pickup.
- Between loads – driving from a delivery to the next pickup.
- Return leg – heading back to base with an empty trailer.
- Failed pickups / no-shows – cargo not ready, vehicle leaves empty.
- Imbalanced flows – more cargo going one direction than the other (e.g. ports inland vs back).
Why empty miles are expensive
Every empty kilometre costs you on three axes:
| Axis | Impact |
|---|---|
| Direct cost | Fuel, driver hours, vehicle wear — paid by you, not the customer |
| Opportunity cost | A kilometre driven empty is a kilometre that could have carried paying cargo |
| CO₂ footprint | Empty kilometres still emit. They worsen your CO₂-per-shipment KPI (see emissions) |
A truck running at 30% empty kilometres is, in practice, ~30% less profitable than one running at 10%, all else equal.
How to reduce empty miles
1. Chain loads at planning time
Build trips so that the delivery of one order is close to the pickup of the next. A TMS dispatch board makes this visible; manual planning rarely does.
2. Use return-load tools
Mark routes where the return leg is regularly empty and look for backhaul cargo — spot market, marketplace, or a partner network.
3. Cluster customers geographically
Group customers by zone or postcode area so multi-stop routes stay tight. Routix uses zones for exactly this.
4. Watch the imbalance
Track empty kilometres per lane, per customer, per branch. The pattern usually points to one or two structural flows you can fix.
5. Subcontract the wrong runs
If a return leg is structurally empty, sometimes the cheapest answer is to not drive it yourself — and put it on a carrier whose flow does match.
Measuring empty miles
You need three numbers:
- Total distance per trip / per vehicle / per period.
- Loaded distance — kilometres between a pickup and the matching delivery.
- Empty kilometres = total − loaded.
Then look at:
- Empty kilometres percentage (empty / total).
- Empty kilometres per shipment and per customer.
- Trend over time, per branch, per vehicle type.
A TMS that links every kilometre to a stop and a shipment makes this calculation automatic. In Routix, this feeds the emissions dashboard and the cost-per-trip view.
Related concepts
See this in Routix
To reduce empty miles in daily operations, start on www.routix.com and then use Dispatch, Zones and the Emissions dashboard in Routix. Those views show where non-revenue kilometres are created and how they affect both margin and CO₂.
