Fuel Bonus....

I see many of the companies offering fuel bonuses. How does this work if trucks are not equipped with APU units? Do they factor in idle time?

I'm sure it varies from one company to another, but as a general rule how does it work?

APU:

Auxiliary Power Unit

On tractor trailers, and APU is a small diesel engine that powers a heat and air conditioning unit while charging the truck's main batteries at the same time. This allows the driver to remain comfortable in the cab and have access to electric power without running the main truck engine.

Having an APU helps save money in fuel costs and saves wear and tear on the main engine, though they tend to be expensive to install and maintain. Therefore only a very small percentage of the trucks on the road today come equipped with an APU.

Schneider has idle time "targets" for each quarter of the year. They understand that in the summer when it is 120 in some states you will idle, so the targets for those months are higher; say 30%, in winter the target may be 10% especially because the trucks have bunk heaters. Now I drive for Schneider Bulk and we have Heat In Transit on some loads (to keep the product at a certain temp). In order to run Heat In Transit I have to run the engine, all the time more or less. So on those loads... I get freebie idle time that does not count against me... as long as I remember to send a message saying that I idled because of the Heat In Transit.

I'd think most companies work somewhat similar as far as idle time. Fuel bonus same idea, there's some metric you need to hit. If you constantly mash the accelerator you won't hit that target.

So for Schneider for the quarterly bonus there are a list of things you need to do: 1) No accidents 2) XX% on-time delivery 3) XX% idle time 4) XX mpg

Thanks Thinks.