Surveys and Statistics - data for small business owner-drivers

Transport and Logistics Industry Surveys, Statistics and Data

It’s important to know where you’ve been, to really know where you’re going. But maybe that’s what Sat Navs are for.

In the meantime we’ve decided to track things like fuel prices and load volumes so that we can be sure if things are getting better or worse for the people that rely on regular work and knowing how much fuel is going to cost each week.

We know that drivers can’t afford to spend a lot of time researching this information, so we did the work to find and present the data in the simplest way possible.

We hope this helps!

Owner-Driver Survey January 2024 - How Was It For You?

This is our first survey for a while and we’re trying to keep it brief. We just want to know how 2024 has started for you and if you’re getting the rates you need to operate a successful business.

Winter is always a tough time as load volumes tend to dip, which means more drivers competing for work.

We introduced our ‘rate guide‘ last year, but in order to keep it up to date we need more information from as many real drivers as possible.

Profit Margin Tracker 2023

The good old days of diesel prices being around £1/litre have long gone. 2022 handed transport companies a serious blow when prices rocketed towards £2/litre at one stage and we’ve never really seen it fall far from it since.

With that in mind, we’ve created this chart to track fuel price changes throughout the year, and to see if driver rates follow the same trend.

In theory, whenever fuel goes up, driver rates should go up too. But that doesn’t always seem to run true. We know from experience that some larger courier companies don’t pass the increases on to their customers – mean drivers are left to deal with it.

The simple way to understand this chart is;

If the fuel price line goes UP, and the TEG rates line goes DOWN, then we’ve got a problem.
If the fuel price line goes down and TEG line UP, then all is GOOD.

We’ve used the AA’s average UK diesel price reports to show the path of retail price rises throughout the year.

If you want to make an effort to save money on Diesel – we have now become an authorised partner for UK Fuels . From 2023 we will be updating prices direct from one of the UK’s leading fuel card operators.

Diesel Prices vs CX Load Rates

Showing the correlation between Average Diesel prices per month (AA Reported supermarket prices vs Fuel Cards) and the TEG courier rates report.

Save Money On Diesel with a Fuel Card

Save a minimum of 3p per litre (pump pricing option)
Save up to a maximum of 10p per litre (fixed pricing option)
Improve Cashflow
Access thousands of filling stations and supermarkets around the UK

Load Levels 2024 Estimator (Coming Soon)

Back in 2021/2 we recorded as much data as we could to track the number of loads posted across the best work exchange platforms. But as more sites launched, and the way they show the loads changed, it got difficult to track.

This year we’re going to use an estimation system. We’ll collect as much data as we can, then use a very basic algorithm to try and work out what to expect in the weeks/months ahead.

Work Exchange Service Load Levels

A rough estimation of the number of loads we expect to see in upcoming weeks, based on data gathered from the previous 12-24 months.

Couriers TV's Growth

We don’t know if you’re that interested in how we’re doing, but we wanted to share this because it makes us proud.

Throughout 2021 we saw a steady climb in the numbers of people following and joining with us on all our social media channels. We will add 2022 data at the end of each quarter, but we’ve already noticed a rapid spike in new followers and numbers are up significantly.