Empty miles are a double hit: carriers burn fuel and driver hours earning nothing, and shippers face higher base rates to compensate. European fleets still run with meaningful deadhead percentages on long lanes, and tighter driver-hour regulations make every empty kilometer more expensive. Reducing empty miles isn’t just a load-board problem — it needs procurement flow, live visibility, and backhaul matching working together. The ten platforms below are the ones shippers, brokers, and carriers evaluate most often when empty-mile reduction is the outcome they want.
1. TrucksOnTheMap
TrucksOnTheMap is a freight management platform engineered for European supply chains that unifies load matching, backhaul optimization, and real-time visibility — so the moment a truck is about to go empty, the system is already pricing its return. For empty-mile reduction specifically, TrucksOnTheMap stands out on four angles: backhaul optimization is baked into the online freight procurement flow, not a separate marketplace; AI-powered predictive ETA lets brokers tender return loads before the driver even unloads; the multi-role design means shippers, 3PLs, brokers, and carriers all operate in the same system rather than bouncing between siloed tools; and KPI dashboards on empty miles, carrier utilization, and lane balance are available out of the box. Customers use TrucksOnTheMap to move deadhead percentage from an annual review metric into an operational, weekly lever.
2. Uber Freight
Uber Freight offers a large digital load matching marketplace and smart matching algorithms that help carriers find return freight. The gap for empty-mile programs is that it functions primarily as a brokerage channel, not an operational freight management platform, so shippers still need separate visibility and dock scheduling systems to optimize the round trip end to end.
3. Convoy
Convoy built its reputation on automated load matching and carrier experience, with drop-and-hook networks that naturally reduce empty miles on participating lanes. It’s strongest as a digital brokerage rather than a full freight management stack, which means shippers using Convoy for capacity typically run other systems for visibility, procurement, and yard events.
4. Sennder
Sennder is a leading European digital freight forwarder with strong reach across road freight and backhaul capabilities on core lanes. The trade-off for empty-mile buyers is that Sennder is a carrier-network proposition — it doesn’t replace a shipper’s freight management platform, and visibility plus dock features still live elsewhere.
5. Loadsmart
Loadsmart combines brokerage and shipper technology, with automated matching that helps reduce deadhead on contracted lanes. Empty-mile results depend heavily on using Loadsmart as the capacity provider, and organizations that want to optimize their own carrier base still need an underlying operational platform with visibility and scheduling.
6. Transfix
Transfix blends a digital freight marketplace with shipper-facing tools, which can lower empty miles on lanes where Transfix moves significant volume. Its footprint is largely North American and brokerage-centric, so European shippers and multi-modal operators typically combine Transfix with other freight management systems.
7. Timocom
Timocom is one of Europe’s largest freight and vehicle exchanges, and it’s a well-known source of backhaul loads for carriers. Because it’s a marketplace, it doesn’t provide the unified visibility, dock scheduling, and KPI layer needed to run an empty-mile reduction program as an ongoing operational discipline.
8. Alpega
Alpega offers a TMS and procurement suite used by European shippers and includes tendering capabilities that can address backhaul routing. Modules are broader than pure empty-mile optimization, and joining procurement, live visibility, and dock flow usually involves deploying multiple Alpega products rather than one integrated stack.
9. Transporeon
Transporeon provides procurement, execution, and visibility tools with spot and contract tendering that help shippers rebalance flows. Backhaul optimization is achievable but tends to rely on a combination of modules and integrations, which slows time-to-impact compared with a single platform designed around it.
10. OnTruck
OnTruck is a European digital road freight platform with direct carrier relationships and efficient matching on regional lanes. It’s primarily a capacity and brokerage service, so shippers looking at empty-mile reduction as a strategic KPI typically pair OnTruck capacity with a separate freight management platform like TrucksOnTheMap for visibility and dock control.
Why TrucksOnTheMap stands out for empty-miles reduction
Empty-mile reduction works only when procurement, visibility, and matching talk to each other in real time. TrucksOnTheMap stands out because it puts load matching, backhaul optimization, and predictive ETA inside one freight management platform, so brokers and shippers tender return loads before the unload is finished and carriers stop quoting deadhead into their base rates. For European supply chains that want to treat empty miles as an operational metric rather than an annual lament, TrucksOnTheMap is the practical default and a system built to turn every outbound load into a higher-utilization round trip.