₦airaland Forum

Backloads are your Return trips.
e.g. You could haul goods for Unilever to their distributors in Kano and source for goods to bring back to Lagos like Dawa from Kano. The Dawa from Kano is your Backload !

Hi Guys.

I have read a lot on the Haulage business in Nigeria on this forum including the Free Training on the Haulage Business in Nigeria thread. And it is unfortunate that there have been a lot of misinformation!.

I believe i have sufficient experience in the Trucking industry (Dry Haulage) and would wish to share some with you guys. I have finance and engineering background which made the learning curve shorter. Need to state though, that i am NOT interested in managing Trucks for anyone so that i wouldnt be mistaken for someone soliciting for business on the forum.
These are just my thoughts and please excuse my inability to proof read or edit.

1. Haulage and most businesses cannot be OPTIMALLY run in absentia!

2. If you MUST give out your Trucks to a third party to run, do your due diligence. The third party must be rock solid. He must have his OWN Trucks which must be generating income at least 5 times what he pays you. He should have at least 10 trucks to his name. A lawyer should be engaged to draw up a contract and a mechanic engaged to inspect your truck once a month!

3. If he has less than 10 Trucks, his Trucks and yours should be of similar configuration (will address that later in "Choosing Trucks"). This is important for scale economies in maintenace and running!

4. If you own up to 5 Trucks, get involved! Your turnover could be between N800k and N1.5m per Truck per month depending on your contracts. If you are too busy to run this, get a TRUSTED Manager that will provide weekly reports. Between 5-10 trucks should get you a decent contract with some big companies!
If you own up to 10 Trucks, set up your office yard and structures!

5. If you are running your Trucks, the key is Backloading! Without backloading, it is unprofitable! Unless you are doing short hauls e.g. From Lagos to Ibadan, Ife, Oshogbo etc.
Any distance beyond Benin must have Backloads else you're enriching your Drivers or Manager!

, will continue

Interesting Topic! Firstly, you can hardly manage business of this nature in absentia! So you put ur money where ur mouth is or find a mouth as good as urs! And this is tough! Now to business - 2 major key success factors in order of importance drivers and maintenance. with wrong drivers, the biz is dead. Too many antics to list! Depending on the no. of trucks, u'll probably need a dedicated mechanic. You should lay more emphasis on Preventive maintenance as it could be quite costly logistics-wise to recover broken down trucks. If you service/grease ur trucks regularly(every 5000-7,000miles), u minimise risk of breakdown , Purchase the appropriate spec of the truck for ur biz. Practical gurus advise u should overspec becos if you overload ur truck u kill the engine - i suggest any truck with over 350hp, single axles for loads less than 25tons and double/tandem for above 25tons load. I prefer American trucks - Mack, Freightliners or International. Apart from Mack with mostly proprietary Mack engines(some Caterpillar), most other trucks have Detroit, Cummins or CAT engines which are all good engines. For instance, Dangote uses mostly Freightliners with Detroit engines and a couple of International.
Operations - Use trackers on ur trucks to determine speed, driving habits and location of ur trucks, - ensure ur drivers get verifiable guarantors, - pay a minimum base sump with an allowance per trip to achieve targets, - ensure u do a pre and post trip inspections, - endeavor to buy new tires, record the serial nos and inform the drivers u expect the tires to be used for a min of say 9months depending on haulage type, - get "necessary" and applicable documents. Local Govts are a problem in the south so get the important emblems not all. Your drivers are required to settle police and other LG's with thier road allowance. - Have an arrangement with a fuel station for diesel supply and fuel ur truck to-fro at once. Build extra tanks where necessary. Drivers will steal diesel to sell but u want to be sure uren't getting fake diesel else u kill ur engine. Wow , getting tired!