Skip to content
FleetERP
Freight operations

Backhaul

Freight carried on the return leg, converting an otherwise empty run into revenue.

Also calledReturn loadBack load

A backhaul is a load found for the return journey after delivering an outbound consignment. Without one the vehicle runs empty back to base, burning fuel, tolls and driver hours against no revenue at all.

The economics are stark. On a one-way loaded trip the outbound rate must cover the entire round trip's cost. Any revenue on the return leg drops almost entirely to contribution, because the fuel and driver cost of returning is being incurred regardless. A backhaul at half the outbound rate can still be the most profitable freight the vehicle carries that week.

Finding them reliably is the hard part. It requires visibility of loads originating near where your vehicle is about to become free, at roughly the time it becomes free — which is a matching problem across open orders, current positions and estimated completion times rather than a phone call to a broker.

Same category

Freight operations

The movement patterns and service models behind road freight.

3PL (Third-Party Logistics)

An outsourced provider that executes logistics — transport, warehousing, fulfilment — on a company's behalf.

4PL (Fourth-Party Logistics)

An orchestrator that manages a company's whole logistics network, including its other providers.

Cross Docking

Transferring goods straight from inbound to outbound vehicles with little or no storage in between.

Empty Running

Kilometres driven with no load — pure cost, and the largest avoidable waste in road freight.

First Mile

The initial leg — moving goods from the seller or plant into the transport network.

FTL (Full Truckload)

A shipment that occupies an entire vehicle, moving direct from origin to destination.

Last Mile Delivery

The final leg to the recipient's door — the most expensive segment per parcel and the only one the customer sees.

LTL (Less Than Truckload)

Freight from several consignors sharing one vehicle, each paying only for the space used.

Browse the full glossary

See it running on your fleet's data

A 30-minute working session, not a slide deck. Bring one lane and one month of fuel bills — we will show you what the platform makes of them.

Book a demo Email sales
Or model your savings first — ROI calculator

No per-user pricing · No hardware to buy · Deploy on your VPS or ours

Prefer to write? sales@fleeterp.in