Trucking Truth Driver Productivity Leaderboard

Old School said in Jamie's Crete thread:

A key element to making money in trucking is maximizing utilization of our asset (the truck) by using a high percentage of our 70 hours each week for productivity.

This thought has been rattling around in my head for the past few days.

In an effort to help CPM drivers here streamline their work and increase their time on line 3 (and hopefully maximize their miles driven as a result), would there be an interest or benefit in some kind of app or website functionality where drivers here could voluntarily submit info from their driving logs to show among other things what percentage of their 70s are spent actually driving? Members of Trucking Truth could then view this information in a leaderboard format and compare their results with others and see how they are doing.

I understand that different types of trucking will result in some drivers turning different average miles than others. In that case I think other information would also be pertinent, e.g. freight division, reefer , flatbed, tanker, OTR , regional , etc. so that drivers could compare their productivity to others doing similar work to them.

This is just a rough idea right now, but I thought I would throw it out there and see what experienced drivers think about it. Of course, the very first question depends on how easy it would be to put such a thing together in the first place. Perhaps Brett could answer that one.

It is more than just using your 70 though. It is knowing when to start your clock and making sure you arent wasting it. I rarely drive in traffic. i will park for 2 hours during rush hour. then i do the 8 sleeper. some will say i save only min, but some east coast areas could be an hour of traffic.

Getting to the customers early and taking breaks there or nearby before your deliveries helps to ensure your "availability"

I know drivers who only did 2000 miles but used all of their 70 staying on duty at customers.... so knowing HOW to ise the 70 is important.

I did a video on trip planning and time management. Maybe that could help you understand.

Kearsey explains:

i will park for 2 hours during rush hour. then i do the 8 sleeper. some will say i save only min, but some east coast areas could be an hour of traffic.

Here's an example from my experience, showing how good time planning works: Cincinnati, I-75 N to S. At 3AM, 20 minutes. At 3PM, try 1 1/2 hours. Would you rather take a two hour snooze or sit two hours in traffic? You decide!

It is more than just using your 70 though. It is knowing when to start your clock and making sure you arent wasting it. I rarely drive in traffic.

Here's an example from my experience, showing how good time planning works: Cincinnati, I-75 N to S. At 3AM, 20 minutes. At 3PM, try 1 1/2 hours. Would you rather take a two hour snooze or sit two hours in traffic? You decide!

Precisely, so the person who took the two hour break and utilizes the 8/2 split to wait out rush hour is going to have a higher average MPH on the 70 clock and thus be more productive due to more miles turned. On second glance, I didn't make that clear in my first post. That's something that would help a driver move higher on the leaderboard compared to others. I am thinking about what metrics should be recorded that would be good indicators for high productivity. Is it really as simple as weekly average miles per hour for a particular type of trucking?

The point of the idea for a leaderboard is so that drivers here can see where they rank compared to other members here. Are they closely ranked or is there a lot of room for improvement? With that information they can look at what they may be doing wrong and improve their productivity, something that is good for both them and their respective companies. From reading some of Old School's blog, I see that companies list such productivity internally, but I am thinking of something with a competitive element that would work here and be instructive and inspiring to newer drivers.

Is it really as simple as weekly average miles per hour for a particular type of trucking?

not really. G-town spends all his time on the east coast with much more traffic than other places in the country. Say Kearsey, Turtle or any of the other masters of the clock did a ton of driving out west with the mountains all week. Would you be willing to say that I, just running back and forth across relatively flat iowa and the surrounding states performed better than them because I maintained higher MPH due to no traffic and not many hills slowing me? I wouldn't be able to participate because I have to unload my truck but I usually turn 1500 to 2000 miles a week depending on how many days I work.

It also depends on if your company allows you to do the 8/2 split, because both Crete and my previous company Schneider doesnt allow drivers to do it. I mean the logs will allow you, but you'll get in trouble company policy wise.

I do about 2500+ miles a week all on the same stretch of road between Joliet Il and Indianapolis, my average MPH would be higher too than someone in the mountains or in east coast traffic.

Then there are guys like me that are hourly, though granted, we are in the minority.

I run my clock completely opposite what a CPM driver does. Happily, most of that is driving and drop and hook , I hate docking for any reason, I can't stand sitting still.

That does sound like a wonderful idea. There just may be too many variables involved when comparing drivers in different regions. Perhaps new drivers could use something like this to measure their own progress as they gain experience..? Then their progress can be compared with other drivers' progress. IDK

I think there are just way to many variables to capture this way. A driver needs to know how to be efficient as possible on their end, for their situation and they will be successful. This would be comparing apples to oranges I think.