Operations

U.S. Xpress sees some Variant metrics improve

May 6, 2022

But turnover jumped during Q1 as new workflows took hold at the tech-first division.

U.S. Xpress Enterprises President and CEO Eric Fuller says things are moving in the right direction at the company’s driver-centric Variant venture as a series of recent changes take hold.

Variant, which leans on artificial intelligence tools and other technologies to direct freight and manage routes, finished March with 1,691 trucks in its network versus 1,555 at the end of 2021. Utilization improved during the quarter to 1,593 miles per tractor per week, Fuller said, and should continue to rise in the coming months thanks to some process changes that have added “structure and discipline” to Variant’s operations.

A big factor in sustaining the pieces of momentum, Fuller said, is getting driver turnover down again after it jumped to an annualized rate of 148% in the first quarter after climbing from 74% to 95% in the second half of 2021. Fuller said staff training on processes put in place following the exit of former Variant leader Cameron Ramsdell took a lot of support staff off the floor, leading to a spike in call wait times and frustration among drivers. That metric, Fuller added, improved in April and is expected to drop further in coming months.

Chattanooga, Tennessee-based U.S. Xpress, which is No. 18 on theFleetOwner500: For Hire list. posted a net loss of $9 million in the first three months of the year, a reverse from a profit of $2.7 million a year ago, on revenues of $517 million, which was up 15% from early 2021. The loss included a non-cash charge of nearly $3 million from the writing off of several technology projects, a $1.3 million gain on the sale of a subsidiary, and the booking of an unrealized loss of $8.4 million on U.S. Xpress’ investment in autonomous driving technology venture TuSimple.

U.S. Xpress produced a Q1 truckload operating ratio of 99.9% and a brokerage group operating ratio of 100.5; both numbers were up about two percentage points year over year. To help bring them back down, Fuller and CFO Eric Peterson told analysts and investors on a conference call they are both looking to grow U.S. Xpress’ fleet—its truckload tractor count averaged 6,239 in the first quarter versus 6,147 in Q4—and keep expenses under control.

“We’re looking heavily at our costs, seeing where we can take down costs, but also trying to spread that cost over more units,” Fuller said.

Shares of U.S. Xpress (Ticker: USX) fell 5% after hours May 5 to $3.27. They had earlier lost more than 6% on a very red day for the markets and are now down more than 40% year to date.

About the Author

Geert De Lombaerde | Senior Editor

A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of experience in business journalism. Since 2021, he has written about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications FleetOwner, Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, Oil & Gas Journal, and T&D World.

With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati. He later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector and many of its publicly traded companies.