In today’s trucking industry, data drives performance. Operations leaders need real-time visibility to keep fleets moving efficiently, and that starts with seeing the right information at a glance.
A clear, unified dashboard puts the most important trucking KPIs right in front of you. Instead of bouncing between spreadsheets and disconnected systems, the best transportation management systems (TMS) for carriers, like Carrier1, bring your critical metrics together in one live view.
With a modern TMS, you’re never flying blind. You instantly know whether your fleet is running on time, your drivers are being utilized efficiently, and your costs are under control.
Below, we’ll break down the five essential trucking KPIs every carrier should track — what they measure, why they matter, and how seeing them on your Carrier1 dashboard can transform your operations.
What It Measures:
On-Time Delivery (OTD) tracks how often your loads arrive within their scheduled delivery window, i.e., your percentage of deliveries made on time.
While some carriers also track pickup performance, delivery timing is usually the most critical, customer-facing metric.
Why It Matters:
In trucking, time is money — literally. Late deliveries can cause fines, strained relationships, and lost contracts. A strong OTD rate reflects reliability and customer satisfaction. Many shippers expect at least 95% on-time delivery, and consistently missing that target can jeopardize key accounts.
Example:
Say your fleet’s OTD dips to 92% this month. Seeing that drop on your dashboard immediately prompts action. Maybe one lane consistently runs behind, or a customer’s dock is slowing down your schedule. Spotting the issue early allows you to adjust routes, reschedule, or communicate with customers before service suffers.
High OTD rates also reveal top performers. If one terminal consistently hits 99%, it’s a great chance to celebrate success and share best practices across your team.
On the Carrier1 Dashboard:
Carrier1 keeps your on-time delivery metrics front and center. Live updates display load status in real time. If a shipment runs late, the system flags it instantly — giving ops leaders time to react before it impacts customer satisfaction.
With that visibility, you transition from a reactive to a proactive approach. Instead of finding out about delays after the fact, you can reroute, notify customers, or assist drivers on the spot.
What It Measures:
Dwell Time tracks how long your trucks sit at loading or unloading facilities. It’s the total time spent waiting at a dock beyond the scheduled window — typically measured per stop or per load.
Why It Matters:
Every minute a truck waits is lost revenue. Excessive dwell eats into a driver’s federally limited hours, lowering productivity and morale. Long wait times can cause drivers to miss follow-up loads and push them toward burnout or turnover.
Industry data shows that drivers spend an average of nearly two hours per stop waiting at docks, which is time that kills earning potential and adds unnecessary cost.
Example:
If one of your trucks spends three hours waiting at a receiver’s dock, it can delay multiple future loads. But if your dashboard reveals a spike in dwell time for a certain shipper, you can act fast. Call the facility, adjust scheduling, or issue detention pay.
Tracking dwell trends over time highlights chronic bottlenecks. If Shipper X consistently averages four-hour dwell times, you can switch to drop-and-hook strategies or renegotiate terms.
On the Carrier1 Dashboard:
Carrier1 syncs with driver apps and ELD data to show real-time dwell time. You can instantly see who’s waiting, where, and for how long.
Your dashboard might show:
“Longest Dwell: 2h 40m at Facility Y.”
You can also set alerts (e.g., “Notify me if any truck waits over two hours”). That way, you take action before frustration or delays pile up.
Carrier1’s visibility keeps trucks moving, drivers happier, and your fleet more efficient — essential for improving key trucking KPIs like utilization and cost per mile.
What It Measures:
Driver Utilization tracks how efficiently drivers use their available working hours — the percentage of legal drive time actually spent moving freight versus sitting idle.
Some carriers also track miles driven per week as a proxy for utilization.
Why It Matters:
Drivers are one of your most valuable (and costly) assets. Low utilization means wasted payroll, fuel, and opportunity — often due to long dwell times, inefficient routing, or scheduling gaps.
High utilization, on the other hand, means your fleet is running productively — trucks are loaded, drivers are driving, and revenue is flowing.
Still, there’s a balance. Utilization that’s too high risks fatigue and burnout. The goal for most fleets is around 70% utilization — busy enough to maximize income and efficiency, but not so maxed out that safety or morale suffer.
Example:
Your dashboard shows fleet utilization at 65% this month. You dig deeper and find that one route leaves a driver underused, while another pushes someone to their hours-of-service limit.
Armed with that data, you can rebalance workloads, assigning an extra short haul to one driver and scaling back for another. Or, if the whole fleet runs below 60%, it’s a signal you have capacity for more loads.
On the Carrier1 Dashboard:
Carrier1 integrates with electronic logs and dispatch data to track driver utilization in real time.
You can see each driver’s utilization percentage (or the fleet average) at a glance. Live updates show how close drivers are to their limits, letting you prevent overscheduling or underuse.
Older systems often reveal these inefficiencies weeks later; Carrier1 lets you spot and fix them today, keeping every truck, driver, and mile working toward higher productivity.
What It Measures:
Empty Miles — or deadhead — represent the percentage of miles driven without cargo. It’s a direct measure of nonrevenue miles:
Formula:
(Empty Miles ÷ Total Miles) × 100
Example:
If a truck drives 500 miles in a week but 100 are empty repositioning miles, your deadhead rate is 20%.
Why It Matters:
Empty miles are pure expense. You’re burning fuel, time, and maintenance without earning revenue. For many small carriers, 15-30% of total miles are empty, which means there’s significant room for improvement.
Reducing deadhead increases profit instantly, without adding trucks or drivers. It also boosts driver satisfaction, since most drivers are paid by the mile and prefer staying loaded.
High deadhead rates can also reveal network imbalances (e.g., hauling from one region but always returning empty). This KPI helps pinpoint where you can find backhauls or rebalance freight.
Real-World Example:
Truck 7 ran 250 empty miles out of 1,000 total last week; a 25% deadhead rate. Reviewing that lane (Dallas to Houston), your dispatcher can plan ahead and find a return load next time using Carrier1 Exchange or connected load boards.
If your fleet’s average empty miles are 18%, but one lane sits at 30%, you might seek new freight partners or adjust rates to reflect those costs.
Cutting deadhead from 20% to 10% can effectively boost revenue per truck with no new assets required.
On the Carrier1 Dashboard:
Carrier1 displays your empty mile percentage in real time, highlighting problem areas in red to grab attention.
For instance:
“Empty Miles (Week): 22% – up 3% from last week.”
With GPS and dispatch integration, the system automatically knows when a truck is loaded or empty. That means ops leaders can act immediately, searching for a nearby backhaul before a driver ever leaves.
Carrier1 doesn’t just report empty miles; it helps reduce them. Over time, your dashboard’s trend lines reveal opportunities to optimize freight mix, cut waste, and strengthen profitability.
What It Measures:
Cost Per Mile (CPM) calculates the cost of operating your fleet for every mile driven. It rolls up all operating expenses — fuel, wages, maintenance, insurance, and more — into one clear metric:
Formula:
Total Operating Costs ÷ Total Miles = Cost Per Mile
For instance, if you spent $50,000 to run 100,000 miles in a month, your CPM is $0.50.
Why It Matters:
Your CPM shows the true cost of doing business. It’s your baseline for pricing freight profitably.
A lower CPM means efficiency — well-managed fuel, optimized routes, and reliable equipment. A higher CPM signals rising costs or waste. Tracking it over time helps you identify trends and take corrective action.
Example:
If maintenance costs push CPM higher, it might be time to retire older trucks.
If fuel prices are the culprit, you can plan stops more strategically or use Carrier1’s fuel card integrations for discounts.
Even small tweaks, such as reducing idle time or optimizing dispatch, directly lower your cost per mile.
Industry Insight:
Long-haul averages typically range from $1.70-$1.80 per mile when diesel sits around $4/gallon. The key is to stay below what you’re paid per mile.
Real-World Example:
Your CPM rose from $1.50 to $1.65 this quarter. Fuel costs are to blame. With that insight, you plan routes through cheaper stations and coach drivers on fuel-efficient driving.
Or, if one lane has expensive tolls that raise your CPM, you might reroute trucks or negotiate a customer surcharge.
When you know your CPM, you know whether a $1.80/mile load is profitable or break-even — a crucial insight for smart dispatching and long-term growth.
On the Carrier1 Dashboard:
Carrier1 makes CPM visible, not buried in reports. Integrated with factoring, fuel, and expense tracking, it calculates real-time CPM and updates automatically.
Example display:
“Cost/Mile: $1.62 – updated hourly.”
If your cost spikes, you can click for a detailed breakdown by fuel, labor, or maintenance.
Carrier1 doesn’t just track costs — it helps lower them. Through its built-in Exchange, you can access fuel savings, insurance discounts, and cash flow tools that directly improve your CPM.
By making cost per mile visible to everyone, Carrier1 turns a static accounting number into a daily performance goal.
Together, these five trucking KPIs — On-Time Delivery, Dwell Time, Driver Utilization, Empty Miles, and Cost Per Mile — give you a complete picture of fleet health.
When operations leaders can see all five at once, it’s like having a daily report card for the business. You instantly know whether you’re delivering on promises, using resources efficiently, and protecting profitability.
Instead of relying on spreadsheets or waiting for monthly reports, a modern TMS lets you respond in real time. If a metric starts to slip, you get a visual cue — and the chance to fix it before it snowballs.
That’s what sets Carrier1 apart. Many small and mid-sized carriers struggle with disconnected tools and siloed data. Carrier1 eliminates those barriers by providing a unified, carrier-focused platform that brings everything together: dispatch, tracking, ELD, factoring, and fuel programs.
The result is one intuitive home screen — one source of truth. Data updates live, no refresh needed. Your team can trust what they see and act on it immediately.
With this kind of real-time visibility, ops leaders move from reactive to proactive management:
Spotting dips in on-time delivery before customers notice.
Adjusting schedules before drivers hit burnout.
Reducing empty miles before they drain your profit.
Ultimately, visibility into these KPIs turns your operation into a well-oiled, data-driven machine — one where decisions are fast, informed, and profitable.
That’s the power of a modern TMS. That’s the power of Carrier1. Request a demo today!
Carrier1 TMS is a cloud native solution built specifically for carriers that want simplicity, visibility, and scalability without enterprise-level complexity. It gives carriers a single, easy-to-use platform to run their entire operation.
