Fleet Utilization Reports

Why This Report Is Different

Most reports tell you what happened at the business level. Fleet Utilization tells you what happened at the trailer level — which specific units earn their keep, which ones do not, and which ones cost you money despite looking busy. It is the single best decision tool for buying, retiring, and repositioning trailers.

Open Reports > Fleet Utilization in the sidebar.

Per-Trailer Utilization Percentage

The core metric. For each trailer, TrailerBase computes:

Utilization % = Booked days / Available days × 100

• Booked days — days on which the trailer was rented out, counting partial days as full.
• Available days — total days in the period minus days the trailer was blocked for maintenance, minus days it was not yet in service or has been retired.

A sortable table lists every trailer with its utilization percentage. Sort ascending to find underperformers, descending to confirm workhorses.

Typical Ranges

Healthy utilization varies by fleet and location. Rough benchmarks:

• Under 30 percent — the trailer is not earning. Investigate pricing, visibility, trailer condition, or consider retirement.
• 30 to 55 percent — a normal, healthy range for most trailer fleets.
• 55 to 75 percent — excellent; likely a duplicate candidate.
• Over 75 percent — saturation. You are probably turning customers away and should consider capacity expansion.

Idle Days

For each trailer, the report shows:

• Idle days — days neither booked nor blocked.
• Maintenance days — days blocked for maintenance tasks.
• Booked days — as above.

The sum equals the trailer's available days in the period. Idle days is the number to reduce — every idle day is unearned revenue capacity. Seasonal idle is expected; idle during peak is a flag.

Maintenance Ratio

Maintenance ratio = Maintenance days / Total days

A high maintenance ratio indicates a trailer that is in the shop more than it should be. Combined with utilization, this flags trailers that are nominally productive but eaten up by downtime.

A healthy fleet averages 3 to 8 percent maintenance days. Over 15 percent on a specific trailer is a signal to investigate: is it a reliability problem, or a scheduling issue (overly long maintenance windows)?

Per-Trailer P&L

The defining view of this report. For each trailer in the period:

P&L = Revenue − Maintenance Spend − Expenses

• Revenue — booking fees, delivery, add-ons, waivers attributed to the trailer.
• Maintenance Spend — actual cost from completed maintenance tasks on this trailer in the period.
• Expenses — other costs tagged to this trailer: registration, insurance allocation, storage, financing.

The P&L column is sortable. You will quickly see:

• Trailers with high revenue and high P&L (your winners).
• Trailers with high revenue but low P&L (busy but expensive).
• Trailers with low revenue and negative P&L (retire or reprice).
• Trailers with low revenue but positive P&L (underutilized assets with potential).

Click any trailer to expand the full P&L breakdown, including individual maintenance tasks and expense lines.

Expenses Setup

For P&L to be accurate, your non-maintenance expenses must be logged and tagged. Go to Settings > Expenses > Recurring to set up per-trailer:

• Registration and tags.
• Insurance premium allocation.
• Storage fees.
• Financing payments.
• Depreciation (optional).

TrailerBase prorates recurring expenses into the report period automatically.

Filters and Comparisons

• Date range — usual presets.
• Trailer type — compare types head to head.
• Tag — compare tagged groups (location, owner, cohort).
• Compare periods — toggle to show current vs. prior side by side. Trailers with large P&L swings light up.

Export

Every table has a CSV export. The per-trailer P&L CSV is the single most valuable monthly export for fleet planning — save it, share it, and stack months to build your long-term view.

How to Use This Report

A quarterly fleet planning ritual:

1. Rank by P&L and identify the bottom 10 percent.
2. For each: is it a pricing problem, a maintenance problem, or an asset problem? The report tells you which — if revenue is low, it is pricing or visibility; if maintenance is high, it is the asset.
3. Address top causes — reprice, invest, or retire.
4. Rank by utilization and identify the top 10 percent. Consider duplicating.
5. Share with any co-owners or investors — this is the trust-building report.

Tips

• Do not judge a trailer in its first 90 days. Utilization takes time to settle.
• Retirement is a decision, not a feeling. The P&L gives you the data to make it objectively.
• Cross-reference with Maintenance Cost Analytics — a trailer's P&L only tells half the story without the trend of its maintenance spend.