Empty miles are the single largest line item most owner-operators, carriers, and shippers cannot control. They sit between every paid run, burn fuel and time, and never produce revenue. LoadBridge AI exists to close that gap — ranking every new posting against the active load board before the next leg starts.
Across the US trucking fleet, roughly three out of every ten miles run without a paying load on board — and the burden falls hardest on the smallest fleets: the single-truck operators and lean dispatch desks with the least bargaining power on the spot market.
Source: ATRI Operational Cost of Trucking, 2024.
These three one-way lanes recur in DAT and ATRI top-volume lists every year. Each row assumes two round-trips per week and an all-in running cost of $1.85 per mile — close to the ATRI 2024 per-mile cost figure for US trucking.
| Corridor | Typical distance | Avg empty-leg miles | Est. $/week recoverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atlanta, GA ↔ Chicago, IL | ~715 mi | ~715 mi | $525 / wk |
| Dallas, TX ↔ Los Angeles, CA | ~1,430 mi | ~1,430 mi | $1,060 / wk |
| Atlanta, GA ↔ Northeast (NJ) | ~780 mi | ~720 mi | $530 / wk |
Estimates based on ATRI 2024 all-in per-mile cost ($1.85) and two loaded round-trips per week. Actual recoverable revenue depends on rate per mile, fuel stops, and HOS windows.
Empty miles are the miles a tractor runs without a paying load on board. They still cost fuel, tires, maintenance, insurance, and driver wages, but they earn $0 in revenue. ATRI tracks empty miles as a share of total carrier miles and reports it each year in its Operational Cost of Trucking update.
An owner-operator running one power unit will typically see 25–35% of annual miles run empty. At ~100,000 miles per year and ~$1.85 all-in cost per mile, that is roughly $46,000–$65,000 in unrecovered cost per truck per year — before counting the wear on equipment and the time the driver could have been billable.
Three practical levers: (1) post your truck availability on the biggest load boards the moment you accept the outbound load, (2) ask the broker on the outbound load — they often have a backhaul staged — and (3) use an automated freight matcher that scores every new posting against your truck, equipment, hours-of-service, and home radius in real time so a backhaul pings you before you finish unloading.
Watch the live demo rank a real Chicago → Dallas load against the active carrier pool — deterministic scoring, AI-priced rationale, no signup needed. Or request early access and let owner-operators, carriers, and shippers on LoadBridge AI fill the empty leg automatically.
No commitment required. Respond within 1 business day.
For a deeper walkthrough of what owner-operators, carriers, and shippers can do on day one to cut empty miles — rate negotiation, broker relationships, hours-of-service planning, and the automated matcher workflow — see how to eliminate empty miles.
For the other half — pushing back on the offered rate before accepting the load — see freight rate negotiation tips.
For Alberta carriers running Canada↔USA lanes — Coutts-Sweetgrass, North Portal, and the cross-border rate premium — see the Alberta cross-border load matcher.