Freight and Distribution KPIs: Truck Fill, OTIF, Detention and Route Productivity
The KPIs that run a freight and distribution operation, from truck fill and OTIF to detention and pick productivity: how to measure each, what moves it, and which figures have a cited source.
A freight and distribution operation runs on seven KPIs: truckload utilization, delivered cost per unit, on-time in-full, dock dwell and detention, route productivity, tender acceptance and warehouse handling. Use the ranges below as reference points for spotting a gap worth investigating, not as targets to copy, because your own trend says more than any single figure.
Every figure shows its basis. A superscript number links to a public source in the Sources list, and the sentence says what that source covers. A figure marked no cited source is kept exactly as originally published because no public source stating it has been found, so treat it as illustrative.
At a glance
Freight and distribution KPI benchmarks at a glance
Words in parentheses keep each figure's original framing or state its source's scope, and Not stated means no figure was given for that column. The on-time delivery row comes from a 2000 census of U.S. plants that measured delivery by the promised date, not OTIF. For dwell, detention and handling cost, lower is better.
Method: How the figures in this guide are sourced
A figure with a superscript number is stated by the cited source, listed under Sources with its publisher, location in the document and access date. The cited figures come from a U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General report, the American Transportation Research Institute, a warehouse science textbook and a census of U.S. manufacturers, and the text gives each one's year and scope. A figure marked no cited source is kept exactly as originally published because no public source stating it has been found. It is illustrative, not measured industry data. Worked examples are arithmetic, not benchmarks.
Truckload utilization
Truckload utilization is the headline capacity KPI. Track both cube and weight fill: typical fleets run 75 to 82 percent no cited source, while world-class dry van operations hold 88 to 92 percent on the binding constraint no cited source.
Below 70 percent, you are paying to ship air or leaving payload on the dock no cited source. The lever is load planning, so that weight and cube max out together.
For example, moving from 78 to 88 percent fill on a 1,850 dollar truckload cuts the number of loads by 1 - 78/88, about 11.4 percent, which removes roughly one truck in nine from the network.
How to measure
Record cube fill and weight fill for every load.
Report the binding constraint, whichever fill is higher.
Review the bottom decile of loads every week.
What moves it
Mixing dense and light SKUs so weight and cube max out together.
Delivered cost per unit is the KPI finance watches. Ranges vary by product, but on palletized consumer goods typical delivered freight lands at 1.60 to 2.10 dollars per case no cited source, with best-in-class regional networks near 1.30 to 1.50 dollars no cited source.
The number only means something normalized to distance and density, so track cost per case per 100 miles alongside it. Watch the trend, not the absolute: a 5 percent quarter-over-quarter drift up usually signals falling fill or creeping accessorials before it shows anywhere else no cited source.
How to measure
Divide total delivered freight cost by cases delivered.
Normalize it to cost per case per 100 miles.
Report accessorial charges as their own line.
What moves it
Truckload utilization.
Mode optimization.
Lane balance, rather than rate hammering that carriers claw back.
On-time in-full ties service to cost. Typical shippers sit at 90 to 94 percent no cited source.
Retailer-graded suppliers are pushed to 95 percent or face chargebacks of 3 percent of invoice or more no cited source. Requirements differ by retailer and by year, so work from your own customers' current policies.
World-class is 98 percent-plus no cited source. For comparison, the IndustryWeek Census of Manufacturers, which collected more than 3,300 survey responses from U.S. plant and corporate manufacturing executives in spring 2000, defined delivery leaders as plants with on-time delivery of at least 98 percent against the promised date1. That census measured on-time delivery, not OTIF.
The trap is measuring on-time and in-full separately and reporting the flattering one. Each point of OTIF above the typical band is worth real money once you price chargeback avoidance and lost-case penalties into it.
How to measure
Count an order as a hit only if it is both on time and in full.
Measure against the date promised to the customer.
Code every miss by its reason.
What moves it
Protecting transit time buffers.
Tightening dock scheduling.
Fixing the top three miss reasons, usually late carrier pickup, short inventory and dock congestion.
Detention is a small KPI with outsized leverage. World-class dock operations keep average dwell under 45 minutes no cited source and detention events under 5 percent of loads no cited source.
Measured data shows how far most docks sit from that. In the 2013 electronic dwell data analyzed by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General, from 29 medium and large carriers and 2 small carriers, average dwell was 113 minutes2.
How often detention happens depends on the method. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's 2014 study of that 2013 carrier data found detention at about 1 in 10 stops, averaging 1.4 hours3, while drivers surveyed by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) reported being detained at 39.3 percent of all stops in 20234.
Detention is usually counted past a 2 hour free window5, 4. Eleven of 12 industry stakeholders interviewed by the Inspector General called 2 hours a reasonable estimate of loading or unloading time5.
Dwell also carries a safety cost: using 2013 data, the Inspector General estimated that each 15-minute increase in average dwell raises the expected crash rate by 6.2 percent7. Billing is no guarantee of recovery either, since 94.5 percent of fleets charge detention fees but are paid on fewer than 50 percent of those invoices8.
For example, at 65 dollars per hour past a 2 hour free window, cutting average dwell from 3.0 to 2.2 hours on 400 monthly loads saves 0.8 x 65 x 400 = 20,800 dollars a month, about 250,000 dollars a year, if every load's billable time falls by the full 0.8 hours. Real savings depend on how many loads cross the 2 hour line, and they come with recovered driver hours.
How to measure
Record arrival and departure times for every truck at every dock.
Report average dwell and the share of loads past the free window.
Put the worst 10 customers or facilities on a monthly scorecard.
What moves it
Appointment scheduling.
Dock door staffing matched to the arrival curve.
Drop-and-hook on high-volume lanes.
Route productivity
Route productivity separates efficient last-mile operations from expensive ones. Benchmark stops per route per day at 45 to 60 for dense urban parcel-style delivery no cited source and 12 to 18 for palletized DC-to-store no cited source. World-class urban operations hit 65-plus no cited source.
Track stops per hour, drop size and cost per stop together. A high stop count with tiny drops can still lose money.
How to measure
Count completed stops per route per day.
Divide route time by stops for stops per hour, and log idle time separately.
Calculate cost per stop and average drop size.
What moves it
Territory design.
Delivery windowing.
Drop-size minimums, plus rezoning or repricing stops below the cost-to-serve line.
Carrier tender acceptance measures how healthy your routing guide is. World-class primary-tender acceptance runs 92 to 96 percent no cited source.
Below 85 percent, you are falling to expensive backup carriers and the spot market no cited source, where costs run 15 to 30 percent over contract no cited source. The spot premium moves with the freight cycle, so read it against current market conditions.
How to measure
Track first-tender acceptance by lane.
Watch routing guide depth: how far down the carrier list each load falls.
Price loads that fell to the spot market separately.
What moves it
Realistic contract rates.
Balanced lane awards and consistent volume.
Raising a chronically rejected lane a few points to stop the far costlier fallout to spot.
DC handling productivity closes the loop between the warehouse and the truck. Typical pick operations run 80 to 120 lines per labor hour no cited source, and world-class engineered-standard operations exceed 150 no cited source.
Handling cost runs near 0.15 to 0.20 dollars per unit in those operations, versus 0.30-plus for unmanaged sites no cited source. Lines per hour depend on the pick unit, since cartons count faster than pieces, so state the unit with the figure.
Order picking is typically about 55 percent of warehouse operating cost, and travel takes about 55 percent of picking time, ahead of paperwork and other tasks at 20 percent, searching at 15 percent and extracting at 10 percent6. That breakdown comes from Bartholdi and Hackman's Warehouse & Distribution Science, after Frazelle (1996), and describes a typical operation, not any one site6.
How to measure
Divide lines picked by labor hours, stating the pick unit.
Split handling cost per unit into receiving, put-away, pick and pack.
Time travel separately from picking.
What moves it
Slotting to velocity.
Batch and zone picking.
Reducing travel, the largest share of pick time.
Run a balanced scorecard
Do not chase one KPI in isolation, because they trade against each other. Maxing utilization by consolidating loads can push transit time out and drop OTIF, and slashing detention by rushing docks can raise mis-picks.
Run all seven together: utilization, delivered cost per unit, OTIF, detention hours, route productivity, tender acceptance and handling cost. Set improvement targets of 2 to 4 points per quarter rather than a single heroic move no cited source.
World-class operations are not best at one number; they hold 85th-percentile or better across all seven at once no cited source. That balance is what compounds into a low, stable cost to serve.
How to build your own baseline
Write down each KPI's definition and keep it fixed.
Collect several months of load, dock and pick data before setting a target.
Compare against your own trend first and published ranges second.
Log what changed whenever a KPI moves, such as a new carrier, lane or customer.
Warehouse & Distribution Science, Release 0.98.1. Georgia Institute of Technology, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (J. J. Bartholdi III and S. T. Hackman). published 2019. Section 3.3 'Order-picking', printed p. 25 (PDF p. 47), table of order-picking time citing Frazelle, World-Class Warehousing (1996). Accessed September 30, 2026.