Information provided by Detroit Diesel shows that hauling doubles can use 17% more fuel per mile, and triples 38% more fuel per mile, compared with hauling single trailers on an interstate highway run. Likewise, trailer configurations for doubles and triples, including dollies, effect the maintenance and depreciation costs of such dispatches. The impact on the linehaul cost in legs utilizing such configurations can be significant, particularly when drivers are paid a premium for pulling doubles or triples.
Carriers running single vs. double vs. triple configurations in various linehaul legs can set up adjustments to the linehaul unit costs using the CIS Equipment Codes, found under the CIS Maintenance item Linehaul. Equipment codes may be set up and defined using any one or two character code to represent an equipment configuration. Each code stores unit cost adjustments for the following categories:
· Labor
· Fuel
· Depreciation – Power
· Depreciation – Trailer
· Maintenance
· Other vehicle costs
A ratio may be entered for each category to adjust unit costs up or down from a base level. That base can be either company average or the single configuration, as the system reconciles the adjustments based on the overall mix of dispatches.
Carriers currently supplying the linehaul dispatch file, DISPATCH.DAT, to be processed via CIS Maintenance, need only create the equipment codes S, D and T, for single, double and triple configurations, and do not have to modify the dispatch file. The system will automatically apply the single adjustments if only the first trailer field in the record has data, the double if only the first two trailer fields have data, and the adjustments for triples if all three trailer fields have data. The DISPATCH.DAT file includes an equipment code field if any other equipment differentiation is desired.
Once established, the equipment differentials are applied when dispatch data is processed, creating specific unit cost adjustments for each linehaul leg, based on each leg’s mix of dispatch configurations, reconciling back so that the overall impact of the differentials is nil. They are also applied to each dispatch when costing the Traffic/CIS database with the Actual linehaul option.
It is important that the benefits of having trailer configurations that provide extra capacity in linehaul legs be balanced with the corresponding costs of hauling such configurations, and the CIS Equipment codes provide this capability.