Trucking industry veterans understand that operations change. A trucking company’s largest customer might relocate a warehouse. Acceptable delivery windows could increase or decrease. Switching to another haul type could increase profits for a trucking company.
When those operational changes happen, it might be necessary to change equipment.
Paul Rosa, SVP of procurement and fleet planning at Penske, and Kyle Hammontree, business segment manager at Geotab, break down why a trucking company might seek to rightsize its fleet by supplementing a heavy-duty fleet with a medium-duty truck.
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Things to consider
As a fleet owner, how do you decide when your fleet needs more or less? When should you purchase more equipment, different equipment, or offload equipment? First, it’s necessary to understand the fleet’s operation.
“It's about the utilization of the fleet,” Penske’s Rosa told FleetOwner. “Are they using [equipment] all the time? Are they using it part of the time?”
When understanding fleet utilization, it’s also important to understand whether each truck travels the most optimum route, as well as the number of vehicles traveling those routes.
“You may have too many vehicles for the route you do,” Rosa said. “You may not have enough vehicles for the route you do, and you're not taking care of your customers appropriately.”
Some rigs might also be overkill for certain routes.
“In some cases, fleets realize they’re running heavy-duty vehicles on routes that don’t require that level of power or capacity,” Geotab’s Hammontree said. “A medium-duty vehicle might handle the same job just as well—with lower fuel consumption, reduced maintenance costs, and a smaller environmental footprint.”
Further, what is your fleet’s territory? Can the fleet easily manage the full breadth of its operational area with the trucks it currently owns?
Are you fully optimizing trailer space? Rosa points out that not every truck is loaded with pallets—some loads are irregular and require Tetris skills to ensure full optimization.
Analyzing a fleet’s operation includes customer aspects as well. Does the customer require delivery to a warehouse, a storefront, or is the delivery final mile?
Speaking of customers, what if customers can only accept deliveries in a specific timeframe? What if your fleet operates in a city that restricts large trucks from specific areas during certain hours?
“If you're only able to deliver from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. because that's the hours of operation for your customers, but now you are limited by only having tractor-trailers, you're now minimizing your opportunity to thrive as a company,” Rosa explained.
Each fleet scenario will have a different outcome as to the best method to rightsize the fleet, Rosa said. If a fleet owner decides their business operations warrant a change in equipment—such as replacing a heavy-duty rig with a medium-duty truck—additional considerations must be made. One such consideration lies in the truck’s reliability.
“It's still quite known that, generally speaking, you get more life out of a 15L or 13L engine than you would a medium-duty engine,” Rosa said.
Most “first users” of medium-duty trucks will get 300,000 to 400,000 miles from a truck before offloading it to the next owner for the truck’s second life, Rosa explained. But with a heavy-duty truck and heavy-duty engine, first users will get 600,000 to 700,000 miles before offloading it.
Not only will you get more life from a heavy-duty tractor, but you can also carry more. Rosa explained that fleets running a heavy-duty tractor-trailer fully loaded would require two medium-duty trucks to replace it.
See also: All-new Mack Anthem targets regional haul
Benefits of rightsizing to a medium-duty truck
While a fleet that operates duty cycles more aligned with heavy-duty tractors isn’t likely to see benefits of switching to a lighter vehicle, fleets that can replace heavy-duty vehicles with medium-duty trucks—or those that can supplement medium-duty trucks in their heavy-duty fleets—might reap the benefits of a medium-duty truck’s lower operating costs and its versatility.
A medium-duty truck uses less fuel, an automatic benefit to the fleet’s bottom line. It also leads to a significant reduction in emissions, which, depending on a fleet’s sustainability goals or regulatory obligations, could make a strong case on its own, Hammontree said.
Depending on how long the truck is in operation, a medium-duty engine will require less maintenance than a heavy-duty engine, Rosa said. Medium-duty trucks also require less brake and tire maintenance than heavy-duty vehicles, simply “because of how the vehicle operates,” Rosa said.
A medium-duty truck might also prove more beneficial in certain environments than a heavy-duty tractor, especially in urban or short-haul operations. In contrast, a tractor-trailer “limits your ability to get into smaller spaces, urban environments, city life,” Rosa said. Medium-duty trucks offer increased maneuverability when navigating city streets and alleyways compared to a heavy-duty semi-truck.
If a fleet requires more versatility, it would likely benefit more from a medium-duty truck. Consider a fleet that hauls different types of products and decides to replace one tractor and 53-ft. trailer with two medium-duty trucks. The fleet might upfit one medium-duty truck as a reefer to haul refrigerated goods; the other might be used as a simple box truck or a flatbed to haul dry goods and equipment, Rosa said.
Finally, some medium-duty trucking operations don’t require a CDL, and this can increase hiring opportunities for fleets looking for good drivers.
