Revenue per trip is easy to see. Margin per lane after the empty return, tolls, detention and the driver is what decides whether a customer is worth keeping.
A lane that pays well one way can lose money if the truck comes back empty, waits two days at the consignee, or pays more in tolls than the rate assumed. Without lane margin, a transporter keeps saying yes to the loads that hurt most.
For each lane, over a period:
| Line | Source |
|---|---|
| Freight revenue | LRs and bills on the lane |
| − Diesel | Fuel slips and mileage, by trip |
| − Tolls | FASTag crossings mapped to the trip |
| − Driver cost | Salary share, fooding, advances settled in hisab |
| − Detention and loading delays | Gate and POD timestamps |
| − Empty return | Cost of the return leg when no back-load was found |
| − Vehicle cost | Tyres, repairs, EMI and insurance per km |
| = Lane margin | Per trip, per lane, per customer |
The hard part is not the formula; it is getting every cost tagged to the right trip without anyone typing it. Fuel, FASTag and challans can come from feeds; advances and expenses from the trip’s hisab.
In SCM for Transporter, the owner’s first screen is lane margin after empty returns, the cash for each Monday of the next quarter, who owes and for how long, and which trucks earn. Diesel, FASTag tolls, challans, advances and expenses are tagged to the trip as they happen, so the numbers are ready every Monday, not at year-end. Related: transport accounting and the control room.
The margin earned on a route over a period, after diesel, tolls, driver cost, detention, vehicle cost and the cost of the empty return.
Charge the return leg’s cost to the outbound lane when no back-load was carried, so the lane shows its true round-trip margin.
Weekly. Monthly or yearly reviews come too late to reprice a lane or find back-loads.
See it on your own data. SCM for Transporter runs the bilty, e-way bill, trips, billing and accounts in one system. Book a 30-minute working session with an engineer.
