How the transit time calculator works
Distance and speed give you driving hours. The hours-of-service rules decide how those hours are spread over days.
Source: FMCSA hours of service summary, October 2026
- Driving hours = miles ÷ average speed
- Break: 30 minutes after every 8 hours of driving
- Reset: 10 hours off once 11 hours of driving or the 14-hour window is used up
- Team: drivers swap about every 10 hours, so the truck keeps rolling
- ETA = departure + driving + breaks + resets + unloading time
Property carriers: 11 hours driving within a 14-hour window after 10 hours off; a 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving; 60/70 hours in 7/8 days, reset by 34 hours off. The calculator starts from the driver's current clock, so a driver who has already used 6 hours today gets an earlier reset than one starting fresh.
A worked example
A dry van leaves at 6:00 am with a fresh clock for a 1,100-mile delivery, averaging 50 miles an hour.
- Driving
- 22h 00m
- Solo total
- 33h 00m
- Team total
- 23h 00m
- Solo ETA
- Day 2, 3:00 pm
The solo driver drives 8 hours, takes a 30-minute break, drives 3 more, then rests 10 hours. Day two repeats the pattern and finishes the run at 3:00 pm. A team does the same run in 23 hours, arriving at 5:00 am on day two, which is why time-critical freight often goes to teams. Start the same solo driver at 2:00 pm with only 5 driving hours left, and the reset comes much sooner, pushing the delivery later into day two or beyond.
Freight transit times: what slows them down
The rules set the minimum time. Real trips add more:
- Waiting at the shipper, which eats into the 14-hour window before the truck even rolls.
- Traffic around big cities at rush hour, and construction on interstates.
- Weather, especially mountain passes in winter.
- Fuel stops and inspections, which the average speed should already include.
- Delivery appointments that don't line up with when the truck arrives.
For reefers, transit time also decides how long product sits in the trailer, and how long the unit runs. Plan the arrival around the receiver's appointment, not just the earliest possible ETA, and see our cold chain trucking statistics for context.
Transit time by truck type
The rules are the same for every truck that needs a CDL, so a tractor-trailer, a CDL box truck and a CDL hotshot follow the same breaks and resets. Average speed changes with the work: a heavy flatbed or step deck load through the mountains runs slower, while a hotshot on open highway may average more. Multi-stop 26 ft box truck routes spend more time at docks than on the road, so add each stop's time to the unloading field.
What the calculator leaves out
To stay simple, it doesn't model the 60 or 70-hour limit over 7 or 8 days, the sleeper berth split, or short-haul exceptions. A driver near the end of their weekly hours may need a 34-hour restart that the calculator won't show. Use the assumptions to set the driver's current clock, and check the weekly hours on your ELD before committing to a long run late in the week. Drivers may split the 10 hours off duty into two periods, one of at least 7 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth and one of at least 2 hours, adding up to at least 10; used together, neither period counts against the 14-hour window, which some drivers use to stretch a day; the calculator assumes the plain 10-hour reset.
Source: FMCSA hours of service summary, October 2026
Using your ETA
Before you accept a load, check that its delivery appointment fits this ETA with a margin for traffic and a slow dock. If it only works by skipping a break or running past your hours, it doesn't work. When we dispatch your truck, we check every pickup and delivery time against your remaining hours before a load reaches you, and you still say yes or no. Our fee is 5% for one truck with authority older than 6 months. See team driver dispatch and OTR dispatch.