Truck or Scraper Load Calculator: Loads, Haul Time, and Fleet Size
Sizing your haul off the wrong number is one of the most common mistakes on an earthwork job. This calculator handles the yards to loads conversions so you are not short on units halfway through a dig or bidding a haul time that does not hold up in the field. Works for trucks and scrapers.
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More on how the haul count calculator works below....
Bank yards are not truck yards
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Material expands when you dig it out. It loosens up and traps air, so it takes more room in the truck than it did in the ground. That expansion is swell. Trucks and scrapers carry loose yards, not bank yards. If you run your load count straight off the cut quantity on the plans without applying swell, every number you get will be low.
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The calculator does this automatically. Enter your volume as bank (in-place) and pick a swell percentage, and it converts to loose yards before it counts loads. If you already know your loose volume, select Loose from the dropdown and skip the conversion step.
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Common earth often runs around 25% swell. Wet clay can push to 35% or higher. Sandy materials are usually closer to 10 to 15%. When in doubt, ask your supplier or run a field test before you commit a number to a bid.
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This tool does not account for equipment payload capacity. Work with your dealer to determine the right payload for your configuration.
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How the Load Count Works
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Loose yards divided by unit capacity, rounded up. That is it. The round-up matters: a partial load still counts as a full trip, so it ties up the same resources as a full load.
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Say you are moving 1,000 bank yards of dirt. At 25% swell that is 1,250 loose yards in the trucks. At 12 yards per truck, that is 1,250 divided by 12, which comes out to 104.2 and rounds up to 105 loads. Run it with three trucks and each truck makes 35 trips.
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Standard tandem highway dumps hold roughly 10 to 14 loose cubic yards. Tri-axle trucks carry more. Off-road articulated haul trucks can move 20 to 40+ yards depending on the machine. Scrapers vary more widely. Small to medium self propelled or pull type scrapers typically carry 14 to 28 CY. Large push-pull scrapers can run 40+ CY and above heaped. Use the rated heaped capacity for your equipment, and keep in mind that weight limits can cap a load before the box is full on heavy or wet material.
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Cycle Time: One Box or Four
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The Cycle Time section starts collapsed. Click the row labeled Cycle Time to open it -- you will see a caret on the left side that points down when the section is open. Entering anything there and collapsing the section again shows your entered time right on the closed row, so you can confirm what is in there without reopening it.
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You can enter cycle time two ways. If you know your round-trip number, drop it straight into the round-trip box. Entering anything there locks the four phase boxes below it so there is no double entry.
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If you want to build the cycle from scratch, leave the round-trip box blank and fill in the phases: load time, one-way haul, dump time (or spread time for scrapers), and return. The calculator sums them as you type and shows the total right below the boxes. One-way haul and return can be different numbers if the road back runs faster empty or takes a different route. Phases you leave blank are treated as zero.
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All time fields are optional. If you are just checking load counts before you have a haul time estimate, leave cycle time blank and come back to it.
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Efficiency Adjustment
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A fleet running at 100% efficiency means every unit is moving every minute of the shift. That does not happen. Spotting, queuing at the loader, scale stops, breaks, and general site friction eat into productive time.
The efficiency field lets you discount the haul time estimate for that reality. Enter 85 and the calculator stretches the theoretical haul time by dividing by 0.85, adding roughly 18% to the elapsed time. Leave it blank and the tool assumes 100%.
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If you manage your fleet carefully on a short haul with a good loader operator, 85% is reasonable. On a long haul with multiple units queuing and a single loader, 70% or below might be more honest. Adjust based on what you have seen on similar jobs. Scrapers may run at higher efficiency as they usually do not have to wait on a loading tool like an excavator.
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Reading the Time Estimate
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Drop in a cycle time and the calculator reports estimated haul time, cycles per hour per unit, and total hours. Cycles per hour is 60 divided by cycle time, which tells you how many trips one unit can make in an hour at that pace.
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Treat the haul time as a floor, not a promise. It assumes every unit runs continuously with no spotting delays, no queuing behind the loader, no traffic, and no breaks. Real haul time will be longer. The number is most useful for fleet sizing: running it with four units versus six lets you see the adjustment before you commit to a fleet size and a schedule.
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Imperial and Metric
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The unit toggle at the top switches the calculator between cubic yards and cubic metres. Switching converts whatever you have already entered, so you do not have to retype anything. All outputs and warnings adjust to the active system.
Common Questions About Earthmoving
What swell factor should I use?
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Use 25% as your starting point for common earth if you do not have material-specific data. It gets you close on most mixed-soil earthwork.
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Here are rough ranges by material:
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Common earth (mixed soil): 20 to 30%
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Sandy material / sandy gravel: 10 to 15%
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Clay (dry to moist): 30 to 40%
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Blasted rock: 30 to 50%
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Topsoil: 20 to 30%
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These are reference ranges. Actual swell depends on moisture, gradation, and how the material comes out of the ground. On a big job, check your first few loads against your bank quantity before you commit to a fleet size. A few real loads calibrate your number faster than any table. The Caterpillar Performance Handbook lists swell factors for a wide range of martials. Your local experience should weigh heavily in determining the swell factor for your project.
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Does this calculator account for weight limits?
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No. Load count is calculated on volume only. The tool divides loose volume by your entered unit capacity in cubic yards or cubic metres. Weight is not part of the math, but should be taken into consideration.
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This matters on dense or wet material. A tandem rated at 12 cubic yards might hit its legal payload limit with 10 yards of saturated clay and need to run short. If you are moving heavy material, find the lower of your volume capacity and your weight-based payload limit and use that as your effective capacity. Running full boxes of heavy material without checking weight limits is a reliable way increase your repair costs and reduce your equipment availability.
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How do I estimate cycle time before I have run this haul?
Break it into phases and add them up. Fleet history in your telematics system can be helpful here, too.
Load time depends on your equipment. An excavator loading a tandem could range anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes. A self-propelled scraper makes a loading pass in <1 to 2 minutes. A push-loaded scraper with a push dozer or push-pull tandem setup should be on the lower end of that range. Matching the loading tool to the haul unit can make for a massive improvement in loading times.
Haul time can be almost anything depending on your project or road conditions. Site roads with rough surface or grade add to that. On-road traffic can add variability. Pull up the route online or drive it to estimate the one-way distance and use a conservative speed.
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Dump time for a truck is usually 2 to 4 minutes. Scrapers deposit on the move, so spread time is the length of your spread pass divided by travel speed. Return is usually a bit faster than the loaded haul but may take a longer route if you don't have room for a two way haul road.
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Sum the phases for a starting cycle time. Adjust after the first hour of production. Your first estimate will be probably be off. The phases give you something to check against when you see where the time is actually going.
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What haul efficiency percentage should I use?
75% to 85% covers many production haul scenarios. Use 85% for a well-managed short haul with a matched fleet and an attentive operator at the loading tool. Consider dropping to 75% or less for a single loader serving multiple trucks, rough roads, or jobs with scale time or traffic issues.
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Scrapers typically run at higher efficiency than trucks because loading is part of the machine's own operation, there is no separate excavator to wait on. On short push distances with a good pusher match or self loading, 85 to 90% is reasonable. If load times get long or travel time dominates the cycle, the efficiency advantage over trucks shrinks.
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If you want to see the theoretical floor before real-world friction is applied, leave the field blank. The unmodified haul time is your best-case number.
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How is cycle time different for scrapers versus trucks?
The phases are the same, load, haul, dump, return, but what happens in each phase is different.
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A truck loads from an excavator or loader, so load time is driven by the loader's cycle. A scraper loads itself on a pass across the cut, so load time is driven by ground conditions, cut thickness and most of all - operator skill. A push-pull pair loads each unit sequentially. An elevating scraper loads independently on every pass. Know which setup you intend to run before you estimate load time.
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Dump time for a truck is a stop-and-spread operation, usually 2 to 4 minutes. Waiting on a spreading tool can increase this time. A scraper spreads on the move with out the need to stop. Estimate your spread pass length and travel speed to get a realistic dump time.
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On return, scrapers can be faster than trucks as they never stop, hitting the return cycle running, so return can be shorter than the loaded haul even over the same road.
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What is the difference between bank yards, loose yards, and compacted yards?
Bank yards are the volume of material in the ground before it is disturbed. Earthwork plans and takeoffs report in bank yards.
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Loose yards are the volume after excavation. Material swells when it is dug out because air gets trapped between particles. Trucks and scrapers carry loose yards, not bank yards.
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Compacted yards are the volume after the material is placed and rolled. Most soils compact to less than their original bank volume, the fill ends up denser than the borrow was in the ground. That reduction is called shrinkage.
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This calculator handles the bank-to-loose conversion for fleet sizing. It does not calculate compacted yield. For compacted volume, you apply a shrink factor to your bank or loose quantity that step is done in your takeoff software or by your earthwork engineer, not here. You can use our Soil Volume Calculator to convert between any of the three material states.
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