Transport company owners are looking for various types of loads for their truck fleets. A solution that facilitates a profitable return of the vehicle to the carrier’s home country is backhaul. What does it mean and what benefits does it provide, we explain in this article.
What is backhaul in transport?
One of the effective ways to achieve higher profitability in road transport is backhaul. What is it? This term means a return haul of the truck and originates from the words back – “return” and haul – “transport” or “haul”. In practice, it refers to organizing a load for the return route of a vehicle that after making a delivery, needs to return to its base or the carrier’s home country.
Thanks to backhaul, the truck does not return empty, which allows transport companies to reduce costs and increase fleet efficiency. Planning these transports is usually the responsibility of forwarders, dispatchers, or transport company owners who make sure that every haul – also the return one – brings profit.
The term backhaul in transport is often described in professional literature as a structured and repetitive process of acquiring return transport orders for trucks. However, practically every return load can be considered a backhaul. International movements of this type typically feature lower rate levels than export transport orders on the same routes, e.g., from Poland to Germany, Italy, or France. This is due to market imbalance: e.g. more loads are sent from Poland to EU countries than come back to Poland.
Organizing backhaul transport requires analyzing available freights not only in terms of rate levels but also the distance the truck must travel after unloading previous shipments. The shorter the trip without a load, the more favorable the financial result achieved by the given vehicle. Another important factor impacting profitability is the distance between the shipment’s destination in in a given country and the carrier’s headquarters or transport base. In the case of a distant delivery point for an international load, it may be necessary to take on a domestic transport order so the truck can finish road transport closer to the carrier’s headquarters.
Return routes, especially long-distance ones, should also be analyzed in terms of road tolls and fuel prices in respective countries. Planning truck routes plays a key role during the implementation of backhaul transports. Dispatchers and forwarders often use telematics and transport management systems to optimally plan routes for trucks.
What does backhaul mean in logistics?
Backhaul in logistics can mean return loads between the same principal’s warehouses. In such a case, the carrier may first deliver finished products from location A to location B, and after unloading, load empty packaging from location B and deliver back to location A. This is an example of a relatively simple combination of two loads. Backhaul and logistics can also take more complex forms – such as milk run routes, involving a greater number of loading and unloading points and various types of partial or full truckload cargo.
What does a backhaul carrier do?
Practically every transport company organizing return loads for their trucks is a backhaul carrier. Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine commercial road transport without return transports. Only in exceptional cases do carriers decide on an economically unprofitable return “empty” to their base.
Where to get return loads?
There are several reliable ways to acquire backhaul loads. What matters, however, is the availability of freight in a specific location and time, as truck downtime generates unnecessary costs. Some principals offer return loads, but most often backhaul transport remains the carrier’s concern. A proven solution is the freight exchange, e.g., Trans.eu, where you can easily find import loads from almost every corner of Europe. Among the thousands of freights offered daily, there are also domestic freights that allow quick planning of the truck’s passage.