Every year, fleets spend real money on “fleet optimization” tools. New TMS modules, new telematics, new dashboards, new AI add-ons. Then six months later, cost-per-mile barely moves, dispatch still feels like chaos, and the only thing that improved is how many alerts everyone ignores.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most fleets are not under-teched, they are under-managed.
In late 2025, you can see why this matters. Margins are tight and volatility is still the norm. Capacity loosens, then seasonal events tighten it, then it loosens again. DAT load-to-truck ratios can spike fast when availability drops. Shippers and brokers react instantly, but many carriers still operate with the same loose habits they had in the boom. Meanwhile, operating costs keep rising where it hurts most, insurance being the obvious punch in the face.
If you are serious about fleet optimization, stop shopping for software like it’s a magic pill. The real work is boring, disciplined, and a little uncomfortable because it requires accountability.
The real reason “optimization” fails
Most fleets fail for three reasons that no vendor can fix for you:
- Poor dispatch discipline
- Bad data hygiene
- Zero accountability when the plan breaks
Technology can expose problems, but it cannot run your operating system. If your dispatch floor is inconsistent, your data is messy, and nobody owns outcomes, your fancy platform just becomes an expensive mirror.
Let me make it real.
I’ve seen fleets with great tools still run like this:
- A driver gets a load offer at 9:05, doesn’t confirm until 10:10, and dispatch shrugs because “he was driving.”
- Detention gets written in a notes field, not coded properly, so billing misses it, and the customer learns they can waste your time for free.
- A load gets swapped three times on a group chat, nobody updates the TMS, and the next morning the planner thinks the truck is empty.
- Maintenance is “handled,” meaning the driver texts a picture of a tire and someone says “we’ll look at it next week.”
Then leadership asks why cost-per-mile is high.
Because you are not running a fleet, you are running a series of exceptions you never close.
Cost-per-mile is mostly behavior, not math
Everyone talks cost-per-mile like it’s a fuel problem. Fuel matters, but in many fleets the bigger leak is behavior.
If you want real fleet optimization, you need to control the drivers of cost-per-mile that are directly influenced by operations and dispatch strategy:
- Empty miles and bad repositioning
- Excess dwell and detention
- Late pickups and service failures that trigger claims, chargebacks, and customer penalties
- Poor trailer utilization
- Maintenance deferral that turns small issues into roadside events
- Safety events that feed insurance premiums, nuclear verdict exposure, and CSA headaches
- Unplanned deadhead because planners and dispatchers don’t follow a clean decision process
Insurance is a perfect example of why discipline matters. Premium pressure has been rising, and the industry keeps pointing at nuclear verdicts and litigation trends as a major factor. But what drives your insurance story is not your opinion, it’s your claims frequency, your unsafe events, and how consistently you enforce standards.
You do not “optimize” that with a dashboard. You optimize that by changing how people operate Monday through Friday.
The “buy more software” trap
The reason fleets keep buying technology is simple: it feels like progress.
A tool is easy to approve. A discipline reset is not.
When a fleet says, “We need a better system,” I ask one blunt question: Do you currently use your existing system the same way every day?
If the answer is no, then you do not have a technology problem. You have a management problem.
And no, I’m not saying technology is useless. In 2025, the best fleets are absolutely using logistics technology, automation, and analytics to get an edge. But the edge comes when tools sit on top of strong fundamentals, not when tools replace fundamentals.
The three fundamentals that actually optimize a fleet
1) Dispatch discipline: run it like a control tower, not a chat room
Dispatch should have a rhythm and a standard. Same process, every day.
What disciplined dispatch looks like:
- Every load has a clear owner and status.
- Every truck has a planned next move that is visible.
- Every exception has a timestamp, an assigned person, and a resolution path.
- Drivers are trained on response expectations, check calls, and macro language. No vague texting that leaves room for confusion.
- Planners stop “hoping” a truck will make it, they verify hours, route reality, and dwell risk.
A practical test: if two different dispatchers handle the same lane, do you get the same result? If not, you are not optimized. You are gambling.
2) Data hygiene: if your data is dirty, your decisions are fantasy
Most fleets are making “data-driven decisions” using incomplete, inconsistent data. That is not analytics, that is storytelling.
Common data hygiene failures:
- Detention not coded consistently
- Accessorials not captured
- Trailer numbers mismatched
- Location timestamps unreliable
- Load tenders living in email threads, not in the system
- Maintenance events not tied to mileage, fault codes, or repeat history
This matters even more right now because the market is choppy. When demand softens, shippers order cautiously, import volumes swing, and lane behavior changes. Late 2025 data shows U.S. container imports dropping year over year in November, with China volumes notably down, which affects downstream freight patterns. You cannot navigate that with bad internal data.
3) Accountability: optimization is a culture of owning misses
If nobody gets uncomfortable when a load is late, nothing improves.
Accountability is not yelling. It is clarity:
- What metric matters
- Who owns it
- What happens when it slips
- What changes next week
You need a scorecard that is reviewed the same time every week. Not monthly. Weekly. Monthly is where problems go to hide.
What “fleet optimization” looks like in the real world
Here’s a scenario that separates average fleets from serious ones.
Average fleet: A key customer starts rejecting tenders because service is inconsistent. Dispatch blames drivers. Drivers blame dispatch. Leadership buys a new visibility tool.
Serious fleet: They run a 2-week lane autopsy:
- Which pickups were late, and why
- How many hours were wasted at shipper or receiver
- Where dispatch changed plans midstream
- Which drivers had repeat check-call failures
- Which facilities caused the most detention, and whether detention was billed and collected
- How many deadhead miles were created by poor preplans
Then they do three things immediately:
- Tighten dispatch SOP on those lanes
- Retrain drivers on check calls and arrival workflow
- Enforce detention capture and billing discipline
That is fleet optimization. Not a software purchase.
30-day fleet optimization reset
If you want cost-per-mile to move, do this for 30 days and be honest about it.
Week 1: Set the operating standard
- One dispatch playbook: check calls, status codes, exception handling, escalation rules
- One definition for detention, layover, TONU, and accessorial triggers
- One “non-negotiable” response time policy for drivers and dispatch
- One daily control tower huddle, 15 minutes max
Week 2: Clean the data that drives money
- Audit 50 loads: were accessorials captured and billed?
- Audit 20 breakdowns: were they preventable, and what was the repeat cause?
- Reconcile trailer inventory, if your trailer pool is messy, optimization is impossible
- Identify top 5 detention locations and quantify cost impact
Week 3: Fix planning behavior
- Implement a preplan target (example: 70 percent of trucks preplanned by end of day)
- Reduce random load swaps, swaps must be logged with a reason code
- Track empty miles with root-cause tags, not excuses
Week 4: Install accountability
- Weekly scorecard, same time, same agenda
- Review top 10 service failures, assign corrective action, confirm completion next week
- Tie dispatcher performance to controllable outcomes, not vibes
- Coach drivers with repeat behaviors, and yes, remove chronic offenders if they refuse standards
This is how fleets actually optimize operations. It is not glamorous. It works.
The trend that makes this even more urgent: cross-border freight complexity
Nearshoring and cross-border freight keeps adding complexity to dispatch strategy, especially on Mexico corridors. More handoffs, more dwell risk, more accessorial opportunity, more ways to lose money quietly. Fleets that lack discipline get crushed by detention, missed appointment windows, and poorly managed transfers. Fleets with discipline turn that complexity into margin.
The market is rewarding operators who run tight processes, not operators who collect software subscriptions.
Final take: tech is the amplifier, not the engine
If your fleet is failing at fleet optimization, stop telling yourself you need “better tools.” You probably need better habits, tighter execution, and real accountability.
Technology will absolutely help, once you have a clean operating system. Until then, every new platform is just a more expensive way to watch the same problems happen.
If you want cost-per-mile to drop, start where it hurts: dispatch discipline, data hygiene, accountability.
That’s the whole game.
About the Author:
Bhavya Vashisht is the Director of Operations at Canamex Carbra Transportation and the voice behind Truck & Trade Trends. He shares field-tested insights from the frontlines of U.S. trucking and logistics to help fleets operate smarter, safer, and more profitably.
Connect with me on LinkedIn (Bhavya Vashisht) for more insights on trucking, logistics, and fleet optimization.
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