The problem
A trip does not always finish somewhere useful.
You might drop a passenger in an area where the next suitable job is unlikely to be nearby. You may then drive back towards your normal working area, move to another area or spend time travelling without a passenger.
Those miles can matter to the economics of the trip even though the original offer only showed the passenger journey.
Drivers often call this kind of non-revenue driving dead miles.
Why it matters
A long passenger trip can look attractive because the fare is high.
But if the trip takes you far away and you then drive a large distance without a paying passenger, the original fare has effectively had to cover more time and more vehicle use than the offer first suggested.
Dead miles can affect:
- total time tied to the job;
- total distance driven;
- fuel or electricity used;
- £/hour;
- £/mile;
- and the amount left after known vehicle costs.
The important thing is not to pretend that every trip creates the same amount of dead mileage. Sometimes the next job appears nearby. Sometimes it does not. Different drivers also choose to treat this risk differently.
How to think about it
There are three simple ways to analyse the road after drop-off:
1. Do not include a return allowance
Treat the offer using pickup and passenger journey only.
This is the most optimistic view of what happens after the passenger leaves the car.
2. Include a full return allowance
Add a full allowance based on the passenger journey to represent driving back towards the pickup area.
This is much more conservative.
3. Use a middle ground
Apply some return allowance rather than none or all of it.
FareWorth’s Smart mode is designed to do this using the passenger-trip time, while leaving the final choice with the driver.
Simple worked example
Illustrative example taken from FareWorth’s current public educational example
- Fare: £30.08
- Pickup: 3 minutes, under 1 mile
- Passenger journey: 29 minutes, 25 miles
The same offer can look very different depending on how the driver chooses to treat the road after drop-off.
A note about the numbers shown below: FareWorth's current public example rounds time and distance for display. The fuel and analysed £/hour and £/mile figures are FareWorth's corresponding educational product outputs from the underlying calculation after the vehicle-cost and Dead Miles treatment is applied. Because the displayed minutes and miles are rounded, you should not expect every output to recalculate exactly from only the rounded figures printed here.
Never
No return allowance is added.
- Return allowance: 0%
- Total analysed time: 32 minutes
- Total analysed distance: 25 miles
- Estimated fuel: £5.02
- Analysed hourly rate: £46.99/hour
- Analysed distance rate: £0.99/mile
Always
A full return allowance is added.
- Return allowance: 100%
- Total analysed time: 61 minutes
- Total analysed distance: 50 miles
- Estimated fuel: £9.94
- Analysed hourly rate: £19.81/hour
- Analysed distance rate: £0.40/mile
Smart
In this public example, Smart applies a 95% return allowance.
- Return time: 28 minutes
- Return distance: 24 miles
- Total analysed time: 60 minutes
- Total analysed distance: 49 miles
- Estimated fuel: £9.70
- Analysed hourly rate: £20.38/hour
- Analysed distance rate: £0.42/mile
The public educational example uses petrol at 40 imperial MPG and £1.74 per litre as educational example assumptions. They are not real or typical driver data, not guaranteed costs and not a universal FareWorth vehicle configuration. The time and distance figures shown above are rounded for display; the fuel and analysed-rate figures are the product's corresponding example outputs from the underlying calculation values.
The important lesson is not which mode is “right”. It is how much the economic picture can change when the road after drop-off is included.
What to watch out for
Dead miles are not always a literal return home
The driver may reposition to another area rather than return to the exact pickup point.
No model can know the next offer in advance
A driver may receive another job immediately after drop-off. A Dead Miles allowance is a way to analyse risk or expected non-revenue driving. It is not a forecast of what the platform will do next.
More conservative is not automatically better
A full return allowance can make long trips look much weaker. That may suit one driver’s approach and be too cautious for another.
Vehicle costs matter
Extra miles usually mean extra fuel or electricity and extra wear on the vehicle.
How FareWorth helps
Smart Dead Miles is a core FareWorth feature.
The current modes are:
- Never — no return allowance;
- Smart — a scaled return allowance;
- Always — a full return allowance.
FareWorth then shows how that choice changes the current offer’s analysed time, distance, fuel estimate and economic rates.
The driver controls the setting.
FareWorth shows how the selected mode changes the analysed offer. It does not claim that a driver’s history proves one mode is best, and it does not recommend which mode to choose.
Practical takeaway
- The passenger journey may not be the end of the economic story.
- Dead miles can reduce both £/hour and £/mile.
- There is no single setting that is right for every driver.
- Use a method that matches how you want to judge post-drop-off risk.
- Keep the final decision under your control.