Truckload empty mile percentage measures the share of a carrier's truck miles traveled without a revenue-generating load.
Empty miles are commonly called deadhead miles.
Empty miles consume capacity without carrying freight
A simplified formula is:
empty mile percentage = empty miles ÷ total miles × 100%
A truck traveling 1,000 total miles with 150 empty miles has a 15% empty-mile percentage.
Those 150 miles still consume driver time, fuel, equipment life, and maintenance capacity even though the truck is not hauling a customer load.
Lower empty miles can improve productivity
Werner reported an average empty-mile percentage of 14.94% in the second quarter of 2026, down from 15.50% a year earlier.
Lower deadhead can support better revenue productivity because more of the fleet's available miles are loaded.
It can also improve fuel and labor efficiency.
The lowest possible percentage is not always optimal
A carrier may accept some empty repositioning to reach a stronger freight market, preserve customer service, or improve the economics of the next load.
Avoiding every empty mile could force a truck to accept unattractive freight or remain idle.
The investor task is therefore to judge whether deadhead is productive repositioning or evidence of weak network balance.
Network and dedicated operations differ
Dedicated routes can have structurally different empty-mile behavior from one-way networks.
Backhaul availability, customer geography, trailer requirements, and route design all affect deadhead.
That means empty-mile percentages should be compared within similar operating models.
Empty miles interact with revenue per total mile
A carrier can improve Truckload Revenue per Total Mile through higher loaded rates, fewer empty miles, or both.
Separating those mechanisms helps investors understand whether productivity gains came from pricing or network efficiency.
Primary-source examples
Truckload empty mile percentage is most useful as a deadhead-efficiency measure, not as a stand-alone measure of rate or profitability.
Part of the Truckload Freight Operating Model
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