Dry van dispatch
Dry van is the deepest freight market in the country and the most crowded. The rate is rarely where a dry van week is won or lost — the accessorials are.
National spot average, week ending 14 August 2026
- Linehaul
- $2.28
- With fuel surcharge
- $2.93
- Surcharge we never bill
- $0.65
Source: DAT Freight & Analytics. Cited with attribution. We are not affiliated with DAT.
Dry van, honestly
What this market is actually like to run.
There is more dry van capacity than any other trailer type, which means brokers rarely have to work hard to cover a van load. Posted rates sit close to the market floor because they can. A dispatcher who only hits accept on load board postings adds almost nothing here, and plenty of them charge you for it.
Where dry van actually leaks money is at the dock. Distribution centers run appointment systems that treat your hours of service as free inventory. Grocery and retail DCs charge lumper fees that get reimbursed slowly or not at all. A van driver can lose four hours at a receiver, blow the next pickup window, and take a reset that costs more than the load paid.
The lanes that work are the ones with a plan on both ends. We book dry van in pairs — outbound and a realistic reload — rather than treating every load as an isolated transaction and hoping the destination market is kind.
What we do on this equipment
Specific to this trailer, not a generic dispatch checklist.
- Book outbound and reload together where the lane supports it, so you are not solving the return trip from a truck stop at 9pm.
- Get detention terms written into the rate confirmation before you sign, not negotiated after you have been sitting for five hours.
- Push lumper reimbursement onto the broker's account or a Comchek up front, so your card is not funding a receiver's labor.
- Check appointment windows against your remaining hours before we commit you, not after.
- Refuse driver-assist unload on loads priced as no-touch, or price it in.
Where the money leaks
The charges and disputes specific to this trailer type.
- Detention that starts late
- Many rate confirmations start the detention clock two hours after your appointment time, not after arrival. If you show at 06:00 for an 08:00 appointment, those two hours are free to everyone but you. We negotiate detention from arrival where the broker will move, and tell you when they will not.
- Lumper fees
- Grocery receivers commonly charge $150 to $400 to unload. That is not your cost to carry. It goes on the broker's Comchek before the wheels stop, or it goes in the rate.
- TONU
- Truck ordered not used. If you deadhead ninety miles to a shipper who cancels, that is a billable event. We chase it. Most carriers never invoice for it because nobody told them they could.
On rates for this equipment
Dry van has the most published rate data of any trailer type, which is useful: it means neither you nor the broker can pretend not to know where the market is.
Related
Where to read more.
Rate negotiation
Brokers open low because opening low works. We negotiate against market data, in writing, on every load.
Invoicing and collections
The load is not finished when it delivers. It is finished when the money arrives, and someone has to chase it.
What rate per mile actually means, and why the number you quote is probably wrong
Linehaul, fuel surcharge and all-in are three different numbers. Mixing them up means negotiating badly and comparing dispatchers badly.
Cutting deadhead without taking bad loads
Empty miles cost fuel and hours and earn nothing. But chasing zero deadhead makes carriers accept cheap freight. Here is how to think about the trade properly.