Trucking Careers · Multi-state · November 9, 2026

Truckers: Empty-Mile Cuts Can Shrink Pay

Illustration of a trucker holding a cab grab handle beside a charcoal semi parked on a rural road shoulder — Illustration for this story. Not a photo of a specific location.

Image caption: Illustration: AI-generated illustration, not a photo of the people, vehicles or places in this story. It shows a generic semi parked on a rural road shoulder.

MarketScale coverage of a Nov. 4 webinar says Optimal Dynamics reports its optimization software has cut deadhead miles 4% to 8% for customers. Deadhead means miles run without a paying load. Ben Marks, a company vice president, warned that cutting company empty miles by about 5% without replacing them with paid work can reduce what drivers earn when pay tracks miles.

Marks said better planning can add a quarter to half an extra load movement per truck each week. That utilization target is the vendor's framing for protecting revenue and driver pay. The webinar did not publish a lane-by-lane audit behind the 4% to 8% range, so the figures work as company-reported scale, not a guarantee for every fleet.

Cost pressure context

Audience poll respondents named fuel as their top cost pressure, while ATRI 2025 averages cited in related materials put driver wages and benefits above fuel on a per-mile basis. Those comparisons are industry context, not Optimal Dynamics payroll data.

For mile-based pay, an empty mile skipped is also a mile not paid unless productive miles replace it. Fleets and truckers may score the same deadhead cut differently.