Time spent driving between jobs is paid, but nobody can bill it. See how many hours a week your crew loses to travel — and what closing that gap is worth.
traqR schedules jobs by location and captures travel against each one — so you can tighten runs, cut dead driving time and claw back billable hours.
Start free trialOne-way time, doubled for the return and multiplied by trips a day, gives the minutes each person spends travelling — usually more than it feels like.
Travel time is paid for everyone in the vehicle and every working day. Across a team and a year it becomes hundreds of paid, unbillable hours.
Cost those hours at what you pay, and compare with what they’d bill on the tools. That gap is the real prize in better scheduling and tighter runs.
It depends on the award and the type of travel. Travel between jobs during the day is usually paid working time, and many awards also provide travel allowances or paid time for travel to distant sites. Ordinary commuting from home to a regular workplace generally isn’t. Check the award that covers your team for the specifics.
Because it’s paid but not billable, and it repeats every day for every person. Even 30–40 minutes each way, twice a day, across a small crew adds up to hundreds of paid hours a year — wages with no revenue against them. It’s one of the biggest hidden costs in a trades business.
Cluster jobs by area so crews aren’t crossing town twice a day, schedule the run in a sensible order, cut mid-day trips back to the yard, and quote in a travel charge for out-of-area work. Even shaving a few hours a week off travel frees real billable capacity without hiring.
For jobs outside your normal area, yes — a call-out fee or a travel line on the quote recovers the cost fairly. For local work it’s usually built into your charge-out rate. Either way, travel is a cost that has to be recovered somewhere.
This calculator is a general estimate to size the cost of travel, not payroll or award advice. Whether travel time is paid, and any allowances, depend on the relevant award or agreement. Use your own real travel patterns and costs.
traqR schedules jobs by location and tracks travel per job, so you can tighten runs and win back billable hours. Try it free for 14 days.