Freight planning services find and book loads for your trucks, plan lanes and rates around the regions you want to run, and check customers before you haul. For small carriers and owner-operators, it works like having a dispatcher on staff without a full-time hire.
Our freight planning team assigns you a dedicated dispatcher and account manager and negotiates loads on your behalf.
Freight planning, often called truck dispatching, is the work of keeping your trucks loaded on lanes that pay. A dispatcher looks for loads that fit your equipment and schedule, negotiates the rate, books the load for your company, and plans the next one so the truck doesn’t sit or run empty longer than it has to.
FMCSA recognizes the role: small carriers that can’t afford a full-time employee often rely on dispatch services to keep a steady stream of shipments while they focus on hauling (FMCSA final guidance, June 2023). There is no federal definition of a dispatch service, and FMCSA doesn’t regulate one unless it also acts as a broker, freight forwarder, or motor carrier.
A day of dispatching usually covers:
A lane plan starts from your costs and the driver’s clock, then looks for loads that fit both. Every plan has to respect these limits:
| Factor | What applies | Why it matters for the plan |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per mile | ATRI put the industry-average cost of running a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, or $1.854 excluding fuel, the highest in the report’s history. | A rate below your own cost per mile loses money on every loaded mile, before you count the empty ones. |
| Hours of service | After 10 hours off duty, a driver may drive up to 11 hours within a 14-hour window, needs a 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving, and can’t drive after 60 on-duty hours in 7 days or 70 in 8 (49 CFR 395.3). | Pickup and delivery appointments have to fit inside the hours the driver has left, or the load runs late. |
| Fuel tax | IFTA carriers file one quarterly return, and the base jurisdiction sends them every member jurisdiction’s tax rates each quarter (IFTA). | Fuel used in each state is taxed at that state’s rate, so the route changes the real cost of a load. |
| Size and weight | The federal government doesn’t issue oversize or overweight permits; states do (FHWA). | For an over-dimensional load, the permitted route, not the shortest one, sets the lane. |
Empty miles are the other cost. ATRI’s 2026 report found that deadhead mileage stayed elevated in 2025 while operating margins for truckload and refrigerated carriers were still below 1 percent (ATRI, July 2026). With margins that thin, a dispatcher plans the reload before you commit to the outbound load.
For where rates are heading, see our guide to the 2026 trucking capacity shortage and freight rates. IFTA licensing and quarterly filing are covered on our IFTA permits page, and over-dimensional loads on our oversize permits page.
Verify the broker against FMCSA’s own records first, then look at how it pays. FMCSA recommends confirming a broker’s phone number in its SAFER system and calling the number listed there if it doesn’t match the one you were given (FMCSA, Broker and Carrier Fraud).
Our guide to avoiding freight fraud covers the common scams and what to do if you’re hit, and our truck factoring guide explains how the broker bond backs an unpaid invoice.
It depends on what the dispatcher does. FMCSA’s 2023 final guidance says a dispatch service can be either a broker or a carrier’s bona fide agent, and the more control the carrier has over the dispatcher, the less likely it needs broker authority. A bona fide agent works for the carrier under a continuing agreement, without discretion to allocate traffic between that carrier and others (49 CFR 371.2).
| Points to an agent (no broker authority) | Points to brokering (authority required) |
|---|---|
| A written contract appoints the dispatcher as the carrier’s agent and states each side’s insurance and liability responsibilities | The dispatcher arranges loads for a carrier without that written contract |
| Books through brokers and doesn’t solicit shippers for freight | Negotiates freight directly with a shipper or the shipper’s representative |
| Is paid by the carrier under the contract, not by the broker or factoring company | Takes payment for a load from a broker or factoring company, or handles any part of the money between them |
| Discloses that it dispatches for a specific carrier, and the load is for that carrier only | Accepts a load without a truck and then looks for one, or offers it to the open market of carriers |
| Never reassigns the load to another carrier | Assigns a load that several of its carriers could haul to one of them, or is a named party on the shipping contract |
The stakes are real. Brokering without FMCSA registration and the required financial security is unlawful, and anyone who knowingly authorizes, consents to, or permits it faces a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per violation plus liability to the injured party for all valid claims (49 U.S.C. 14916). Before any dispatcher books under your authority, put the arrangement in writing and know who pays it.
Freight planning sits in our Freight4U division, alongside trucking factoring. Here is what you get:
Just starting out? A new for-hire carrier needs its registrations in place before the first load. Our trucking authority packages file your USDOT number, MC authority, BOC-3, and UCR, and our start your trucking business guide walks through the rest.
An honest caveat: no dispatcher controls the freight market. Rates and load availability move with capacity and demand, so we plan for the best loads available, but nobody can promise you a rate or a truck that never runs empty.
Use the form below, write “freight planning” in the comments, and tell us your equipment type, how many trucks you run, and the lanes you want. Our team will contact you to set up your plan.
It is the planning behind every load: choosing lanes, pricing them against your cost per mile, fitting pickups and deliveries into the driver’s hours of service, and lining up the next load so the truck doesn’t run empty. For small carriers, a dispatcher usually does it.
Not always. Under FMCSA’s 2023 guidance, a dispatcher working under a written contract as one carrier’s agent, paid by that carrier and booking through brokers, generally doesn’t. A dispatcher that negotiates directly with shippers, takes payment from brokers or factoring companies, or assigns loads among several carriers should have broker authority.
Look the broker up in FMCSA’s SAFER system and call the phone number listed there, not just the number you were given. Walk away from blind loads, rates far above the market, or requests to haul under another carrier’s name. Every registered broker must keep a $75,000 bond or trust fund in effect.
Our Freight4U division, which handles freight planning and factoring for carriers. Simplex Group handles compliance, permits, and tax reporting, and Simplex Insurance handles coverage. You can reach the freight planning team through the form on this page.
The rules and figures on this page come from these official sources, checked on October 5, 2026.