Understanding how Transit Times are calculated.
Many of our customers are often confused by transit times, how they are calculated, and why it takes 6 days to deliver something from the West Coast. We often hear “I’ve got a skid in Florida. and it’s ready now. Do you think you could deliver it to me in Toronto tomorrow?” It is our hope that this article will give our shippers a clear understanding of how transit times are calculated.
While the new hours of service have made the calculation a little bit more complicated. The fact is that a driver can only drive about 50 miles per hour (average). Therefore under the new rules, he can drive a maximum of 550 miles in a day. On the first day, if you include pick up time, delivery, and border clearance, only about 350 miles can be driven.
The math is very simple. Simply subtract 350 miles for the first day, divide the remainder by 550 and add back in the first day. This will give you the truck load transit time. With LTL the carrier usually has to spend at least half a driving shift picking up multiple shipments and half a shift delivering multiple shipments. This adds one day to the truck load transit times.
TIP: A great place to check mileage is on the Internet. Go to www.mapquest.com and simply enter the shipping address and delivery address. The website will calculate the driving directions and the mileage for you.
Real World Example
Los Angeles, CA to Toronto, ON = 2539 miles
Calculation: 2539 - 350 for day 1 = 2189 miles left to go
Divide remaining miles by 550 = 4 days
Total transit time is 1 + 4 = 5 days for a full truck load
Add 1 day for LTL picks and deliveries = 6 days for LTL
***Note for simplicity, if you just use approximately 500 miles per day and then add 1 day for LTL shipments, it should work out to be very similar.