Dedicated lanes for owner-operators and small fleets
A steady lane you run every week beats a great rate you find once. We look for repeat and dedicated freight that fits your truck, your home base and the days you want to be out.
Why consistency beats a good rate
Most carriers judge a week by the best rate they got. The weeks that actually pay are the ones with no gaps in them. A truck that runs five loaded days at a fair rate earns more than one that gets a headline rate on Monday and then sits until Thursday waiting for something as good, and it does it with less deadhead, fewer hours on the phone and a schedule you can plan a life around.
That is the whole argument for lane consistency. When you run the same corridor repeatedly you learn the shippers, the receivers, where the traffic is at four in the afternoon and which docks will hold you. The brokers on that lane start to know your truck. Detention gets argued from a position of having been reliable for three months rather than being a stranger with a complaint.
It also changes the maths on deadhead. A repeating lane usually has a known reload, so the empty miles that quietly eat a month become predictable and small instead of a surprise every Friday.
What "dedicated" actually means
The word gets used loosely, and it is worth being precise before anyone promises you anything.
- True dedicated freight is contracted: a shipper commits volume on a lane, and a carrier commits capacity to it. It is normally awarded to carriers with several trucks and a track record.
- Dedicated lanes offered through a broker are the common version for a single truck — the broker holds the contract and places carriers on it week after week.
- A repeat lane is neither, but behaves like both: the same freight moves regularly, and you get first refusal because you have been reliable on it.
- We work all three. For most owner-operators the second and third are what is realistically available, and they deliver most of the benefit.
- What nobody can honestly promise is a guaranteed number of loads. Volume on any lane moves with the shipper’s own demand.
What we do to build a lane
Load sourcing
Boards, direct broker relationships and repeat lanes — worked continuously, not only when the truck is empty.
Rate negotiation
Every load is negotiated. We know what a lane paid last week, and we do not take the first number on the board.
Paperwork
Carrier packets, rate confirmations, BOLs, lumper receipts and the invoice packet your factoring company needs.
Detention and TONU
If you sit, we document it and bill it. Detention that nobody claims is the most commonly abandoned money in trucking.
Dry van and flatbed lanes
Dry van is where most repeating freight lives. Retail and consumer goods replenish on a schedule, so the same lane moves every week, and a 53 ft van that is reliable on a corridor gets offered that freight before it reaches a board.
Flatbed lanes repeat for a different reason. Steel service centres, lumber yards and manufacturers ship to the same customers continuously, and because securement and tarping make the work harder to cover, a carrier who does it properly becomes valuable quickly. Flatbed consistency is usually earned through competence rather than price.
If you run something else, the principle holds — reefer and power only both have repeating freight, and the equipment pages set out how each one works.
BSG Carriers is a dispatch service, not a freight broker. You keep your own authority, your own insurance and your own carrier packet — the loads are booked under your MC, and you are paid by the broker or shipper directly.
How we set a lane up
What it costs
Dispatching is charged as a percentage of the linehaul, agreed before you take your first load, and there is no long-term contract to sign. Ask a dispatcher for the current rate.
There is no separate charge for lane work. It is what dispatching is supposed to be.
Where to go next
Questions carriers ask
Put your truck to work
Send your MC and DOT numbers and a dispatcher will call you within one business day.