An empty motorway is the cheapest infrastructure in Europe. A truck running Rennes to Lyon between 22:00 and 06:00 covers the distance roughly eighteen percent faster than the same unit in daylight, burns less fuel doing it, and arrives inside the receiving window instead of queueing outside it.
That is the entire commercial case, and it is a strong one. The reasons not to do it are all on the other side of the ledger.
What night costs
- Driver premium and retention. Night work is paid more and turns over faster. Over a three-year horizon the recruitment cost is real.
- Maintenance load. Cold starts, longer continuous running and reduced visibility inspection quality all show up in the workshop.
- Receiving reality. A fast arrival at 04:00 is worthless if the customer’s dock opens at 07:00. Then you have simply moved the queue.
Our rule
A lane earns night operation when three things are true: the receiving site accepts out-of-hours delivery, the round trip fits inside a single driver’s legal hours, and the daylight congestion penalty on that corridor exceeds twelve percent. Roughly a third of our long-haul lanes qualify.
The rest run in daylight, and we stop pretending that is a compromise.