How to Reduce Empty Kilometres
Deadhead kilometres earn nothing but cost plenty. Here's where they hide — and how smart optimisation drives them out of your fleet.
In This Guide
1. What Counts as an Empty Kilometre
An empty kilometre — also called empty running or a deadhead kilometre — is any distance a vehicle covers without a passenger or paying load: the run out to the first pickup, the gap driven between one dropoff and the next pickup, and the trip back to base at the end of a shift. The wheels turn, fuel burns, the driver is paid — and no revenue is earned.
2. Why It's Your Biggest Hidden Cost
Empty running commonly makes up 20–40% of total distance in passenger and community transport. Because it produces no revenue, every deadhead kilometre removed drops almost entirely to the bottom line — making it the highest-leverage cost in the operation, and the one manual planning most often misses.
3. Where Deadhead Comes From
- Poor job chaining — a driver finishes across town from their next pickup.
- Wrong-driver assignment — a job goes to a further driver when a closer one was free.
- Unbalanced workloads — some vehicles run long empty legs while others sit idle.
- Base-centric planning — everything routes through the depot instead of the field.
4. How to Cut It
The fix is to plan the fleet as a whole rather than job by job. Fleet optimisation chains jobs so each dropoff lands near the next pickup, assigns work to the nearest suitable driver, and balances the load across every vehicle. This is the Vehicle Routing Problem at work — and it captures the combinations a dispatcher simply can't evaluate by hand. For the wider strategy, see the smart transport optimisation guide.
5. Measuring the Improvement
Track total fleet distance per day, distance per completed job, and the ratio of loaded to empty kilometres. Operators who move from manual planning to optimisation typically see total distance fall 15–30% — the bulk of it deadhead — with matching cuts to fuel and overtime.
You can't cut what you can't see. Once empty kilometres are measured, optimisation turns them into the easiest saving in the business.
Empty Kilometres FAQs
Empty kilometres — also called empty running or deadhead kilometres — are distances a vehicle travels without a passenger or paying load on board: driving to the first pickup, between jobs, or back to base. They cost fuel, wages, and vehicle wear while earning nothing.
It varies by operation, but empty running commonly accounts for 20–40% of total distance in passenger and community transport. Because it earns no revenue, it's usually the single largest source of recoverable cost.
Optimisation chains jobs so each dropoff is close to the next pickup, assigns jobs to the nearest suitable driver, and balances work across the fleet — shrinking the gaps between paid trips. Operators typically cut total distance 15–30%, most of it deadhead.
You can improve with disciplined manual planning — grouping jobs by area and time — but the gains plateau quickly as volume grows. Software captures the combinations a dispatcher can't hold in their head, which is where most deadhead hides.
Drive Out the Empty Kilometres
Waybill's fleet optimisation cuts deadhead distance across your whole fleet. Pay only for completed jobs — from $0.45.