Power Only Loads
Bring The Tractor, Not The Trailer

Why an operator chooses power only

The obvious reason is capital. A tractor alone is a materially cheaper entry into truckload than a tractor and a trailer, and a trailer that spends its life being loaded and unloaded is an asset earning nothing for a large part of every week. Power only removes the payment, the trailer maintenance, the trailer insurance and the annual inspection on it.

The less obvious reason is time. Power only work is overwhelmingly drop and hook, which means the trailer is loaded before you arrive and is dropped rather than unloaded when you get there. An operator who spends four hours a day at docks and an operator who spends twenty minutes in a yard are running the same tractor at very different utilisation, and utilisation is what actually pays a truck payment.

What is a power only load board?

A board filtered to jobs where the trailer is supplied and usually already loaded and sealed, so what you are selling is the tractor, the driver and the hours. Listings show the rate and the trailer type, and the document to read before you hook is the interchange agreement rather than the bill of lading.

The appeal is straightforward: no trailer payment, no trailer maintenance, and most of the loading time gone. What it does not remove is liability for the equipment while it is behind you, which is the one thing worth slowing down for. Trailer types posted this way run across van, reefer, flatbed and chassis work, so the filter is the trailer you are willing to pull.

The trailer interchange agreement

This is the part of power only that catches people. When you pull equipment you do not own, you sign an interchange agreement, and that agreement decides who is responsible if the trailer is damaged, stolen or impounded while it is attached to your tractor. Your own physical damage cover does not extend to somebody else's trailer; trailer interchange insurance is a separate coverage bought for exactly this.

• Confirm the interchange agreement before you hook, not at the drop.
• Carry trailer interchange coverage at the limit the agreement requires, commonly $20,000 to $50,000 in this segment.
• Inspect the trailer before you pull it and photograph the tyres, lights, doors, seal and any existing damage. That photograph is the only version of events you control.
• Check the tyres and the annual inspection sticker specifically. You are the one at the roadside, and a defect on a borrowed trailer is still your out-of-service violation.

Who posts power only freight

Three main sources. Shippers with their own trailer fleets who need capacity to move them. Brokers and 3PLs running drop trailer programmes at customer sites, where trailers are preloaded through the day and pulled overnight. And trailer pools and drayage operations, where the equipment belongs to the pool by design.

The freight itself is whatever is in the trailer, dry van is the most common by volume, but reefer, flatbed and container chassis power only work all exist. If you run power only you are selling tractor hours rather than trailer capacity, which changes how you should read a rate: compare it against your cost per hour as well as your cost per mile.

What it does not remove

Power only is not a shortcut around authority or insurance. You still need a USDOT number and interstate for-hire operating authority, public liability at $750,000 minimum for non-hazardous freight and usually $1,000,000 in practice, and cargo cover on the freight you are pulling. What it removes is the trailer, not the business.

If you are still deciding what to run, dry van loads is the pool most power only work draws from, and getting your own authority covers the paperwork either way.

Every power only load on this board shows its rate before you call, and posting is free for brokers and shippers, which is why the freight is here. See how it works for carriers.