Why Empty Miles Are No Longer the Real Cost — Timing Is
What live terminal behavior is now revealing that most logistics networks still miss
- Reduce deadhead
- Improve driver utilization
- Increase drop-and-hook
- Speed turns
- Stabilize service levels
All of this assumes one thing remains stable:
That time behaves normally.
That assumption is no longer holding.
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What Operators Think They're Optimizing
- Reduce deadhead
- Improve driver utilization
- Increase drop-and-hook
- Speed turns
- Stabilize service levels
All of this assumes one thing remains stable:
That time behaves normally.
That assumption is no longer holding.
The real cost now shows up earlier, quieter, and harder to see — in time, not distance.
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What the System Is Actually Doing
Since November, we've been running a street-turn detection engine daily across multiple U.S. container terminals.
Not to model opportunity. Not to forecast behavior. But to observe where reuse is being forced by timing pressure.
- 250+ confirmed street-turn reuse events
- 19 U.S. terminals
- 70+ recursive multi-leg reuse chains
- ~20,000 empty miles physically removed
The mileage savings aren't the insight.
The recursion is.
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Why Recursion Changes Everything for a Brokerage Network
A single street turn saves money.
A recursive street turn changes network behavior.
- Reuse at one terminal reduces empty availability
- Adjacent terminals feel pressure within 24–72 hours
- Availability shifts laterally
- Dispatch assumptions quietly break
- Margin volatility shows up after decisions are already locked
This isn't optimization.
It's forced adaptation.
And most networks only see it after service reliability slips or costs jump.
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The Blind Spot in Most Broker Networks
Most brokerages are very good at optimizing within a moment.
Very few can see how decisions propagate across time and geography.
That's the gap.
- Fewer good options
- More reactive dispatch
- More explanation calls
- Less flexibility when it matters most
By the time it shows up on a P&L, it's no longer early.
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What Changes When You See This Early
Seeing timing pressure early doesn't create more freight.
- Earlier warning of imbalance
- Better empty positioning decisions
- Fewer surprise service breaks
- Stronger conversations with shippers grounded in reality
- Less reactive margin defense
The value isn't efficiency.
It's fewer surprises.
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Why This Matters Now
Street turns are often treated as a tactical cost-saving move.
- Pressure is rising
- Time assumptions are breaking
- The system is adapting before contracts or pricing do
Once reuse becomes recursive, the network is already repricing.
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Closing
We maintain a private list of operators and brokerages where this detection runs continuously, findings are shared privately, and the model adapts based on how their networks actually behave.
We don't publish rankings. We don't sell dashboards.
We surface pressure before it turns into explanation calls.