Power only dispatch: your tractor, their trailer
Run freight without owning a box. Power only suits operators who want the lower overhead of a tractor alone, and it lives or dies on drop-and-hook density in the markets you run.
What power only actually means for your week
In power only work you supply the tractor and the driver, and the trailer belongs to the shipper, the broker or a trailer pool. You hook, you run, you drop. It removes the cost of buying and maintaining a trailer, removes trailer tyres and brakes from your maintenance bill, and removes the trailer from your insurance — though you will usually need trailer interchange coverage instead.
The trade is that you are dependent on somebody else's equipment and somebody else's trailer pool. A power only operator in a market with plenty of drop yards runs a tight, high-utilisation week. The same operator in a thin market spends it bobtailing between hooks, which pays nothing.
That is the single thing a dispatcher has to get right on power only: density. Booking a good load into a market with no outbound trailer is worse than booking a mediocre one into a market full of them.
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.
What we do on every load
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.
Check these before you hook
- Does your insurance include trailer interchange, and at what limit? Most power only programmes require it.
- Who is liable for damage found on the trailer, and is there an inspection process at hook and drop?
- Is the trailer loaded and sealed, or are you responsible for the count?
- Where does the trailer have to be dropped, and is there a time window on it?
- Does bobtail mileage between the drop and the next hook get paid, or is it on you?
How we run power only
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 forced dispatch, and no obligation to stay inside one trailer programme if another market is paying better.
Where power only loads come from
Power only freight exists because somebody else owns more trailers than tractors. Large shippers and distribution networks run trailer pools so that loading can happen on their schedule rather than while a truck waits; retailers drop trailers at stores; carriers with more freight than drivers place the overflow with outside tractors.
The three common arrangements are drop-and-hook on a shipper’s pool, moving a broker’s or carrier’s trailers between facilities, and dedicated work where you run the same network repeatedly. All three reward reliability more than they reward negotiation, because the value to the customer is that the trailer moves when they expect it to.
The practical attraction is time. Drop-and-hook means you are not sitting through a live load, and hours you do not spend at a dock are hours you can drive. For a carrier whose constraint is the 14-hour window rather than the rate, that is worth more than it looks on the rate confirmation.
The economics: no trailer on your balance sheet
Power only changes your cost base more than it changes your revenue.
- No trailer payment, no trailer insurance beyond interchange cover, no trailer maintenance, no tyres, no annual inspection on equipment you do not own.
- No parking problem for a trailer you are not using, which in some metros is a real monthly cost.
- Against that, the rate is generally lower than pulling your own box, because you are supplying less.
- You also have less control. You go where the trailers are, and you cannot choose to run a load that suits you with equipment you do not have.
- The comparison that matters is not rate against rate. It is rate minus costs, over a month, against the same figure for owning a trailer — and for a carrier who would otherwise be financing a box, power only often wins.
Trailer interchange: the cover people discover too late
The single most common gap in a power-only operator’s insurance. Confirm the specifics with your agent — this is a summary, not advice on your policy.
- Trailer interchange insurance covers physical damage to a trailer you do not own while it is in your possession under a written interchange agreement.
- Your own physical damage cover generally applies to equipment you own or specifically schedule. A borrowed trailer is usually neither.
- It is normally triggered by a written trailer interchange agreement. Without that agreement in place the cover may not respond at all, which is the detail that catches people.
- Non-owned trailer coverage is a related but different thing, and which one a broker asks for varies. Read what the agreement actually requires rather than assuming.
- Typical limits requested are in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds, because it is the trailer being covered rather than the freight.
- Cargo liability is separate again, and still yours. Pulling somebody else’s trailer does not move responsibility for the freight inside it.
Hooking to a trailer you did not load
You are responsible for the condition of what you pull, whoever owns it.
- Walk it before you hook. Tyres, lights, brakes, landing gear, kingpin, mud flaps and the floor if you can see it — you will be the one at the inspection, not the owner.
- Photograph anything already damaged, before you move. That photograph is the whole defence against being charged for it.
- Check the seal against the paperwork, and never break a seal you were not asked to break.
- Check the load inside where you are permitted to. Weight distribution is your axle violation, not the shipper’s.
- Confirm where the trailer is to be returned or dropped, and what happens if the destination pool is full. Being unable to drop is a surprisingly common way to lose half a day.
Power only against owning a trailer
Owning a box gives you access to every dry van load on the board and the freedom to take freight anywhere. It costs you the payment, the insurance, the maintenance and the parking, and it ties up capital a new carrier may not have.
Power only gives you a lower cost base, less time at docks and a simpler operation, in exchange for a lower rate and less say over where you go. It also makes you dependent on networks that have trailers to move, which is fine until one of them changes its plans.
A reasonable middle position, and one plenty of carriers run: own a trailer and take power only work when it suits the week. That keeps both pools open and is why the equipment comparison page is worth reading before committing either way.
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.