Power-only

Power-only is a truckload service in which the carrier supplies only the tractor and driver and pulls a trailer someone else owns — a shipper's, a broker's or a large carrier's pool. Schneider, for example, has third-party carriers pull Schneider trailers loaded with shippers' freight. A written interchange agreement governs the trailer.

How it works

Schneider describes the split plainly: the third-party carrier provides only the truck, while Schneider provides the trailers that carry the shipper's freight and coordinates and contracts the carriers. Trailers usually wait preloaded at the shipper, so a power-only driver drops one trailer and hooks another rather than waiting at a dock.

The interchange agreement

When authorized carriers hand equipment between them, US rules require a written contract, lease or other arrangement providing for the interchange and specifically describing the equipment (49 CFR 376.31). It must set out the points of interchange, how the equipment is to be used and the compensation for that use, and be signed by the parties.

Who carries the cargo liability

Whoever the contract says. In Schneider's programme, all power-only freight still falls under Schneider's cargo liability policies. In other arrangements the hauling carrier may carry it; check before the first load, not after a claim.

Worked example: one power-only move

1. A trailer owner keeps a pool of trailers at a shipper's plant, loaded ahead of time.
2. The power-only carrier arrives bobtail, hooks a loaded trailer and records its number and condition at interchange.
3. It delivers, drops the loaded trailer at the consignee and hooks an empty to take back or on to the next load.
4. The carrier is paid for the move; the trailer, and usually the cargo liability, stay with the owner.

The gain is less waiting: ATRI found drivers were detained at 39.3% of stops in 2023, and that drop-and-hook shipments are less susceptible to detention.