Southeast freight corridors, worked through one lane at a time.
A corridor page takes one dry van lane and works it through: the miles, the drive day under federal hours-of-service rules, the interstates and where they back up, which way the freight flows, and what to put in a request. Three are published.
A service page explains what a 53-foot dry van carries and how truckload works; the Southeast dry van overview covers the seven-state picture. A corridor page answers a more specific question: what does it take to move a full van between these two places? The answer changes from lane to lane, even between lanes of the same length, because the roads, the bottlenecks, the state-to-state freight flows and the receivers at the far end are different.
Every corridor page works through the same planning questions, answered from sources for that lane:
Miles and route: the interstates used and a published distance.
The hours-of-service day: whether the run fits one driver's 11 driving hours and 14-hour window, and when the 10-hour break pushes delivery to the next morning.
Congestion: named bottlenecks on the approach, from a ranked national list.
Direction and backhaul: which way freight tends to move, and what that means for the empty leg home.
Seasonality: retail import peaks, holiday weeks and the Atlantic hurricane season, June through November.
Accessorial pitfalls and the request itself: appointment ownership, lumpers, detention, pallet counts and dock hours.
Hotshot and flatbed freight nationwide (lower 48). Dry van truckload across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee.USA only — no cross-border, no drayage, no rail, no temperature-controlled freight. The corridor pages stay inside that footprint: 53-foot dry van truckload between warehouses, plants and distribution centers. Because drayage is excluded, the two Savannah pages start at port-area warehouses and transload facilities, not at the terminal gate.
How the numbers are built
Every figure on a corridor page comes from a source you can open, and each page lists its sources at the top with a review date. The core set:
Distance. Driving routes from the OSRM routing engine on OpenStreetMap data, with the endpoints stated on each corridor page, checked against interstate lengths in FHWA's Route Log and Finder List (table current as of January 2026). FHWA lists I-16 at 165.71 miles, all in Georgia, which is two-thirds of the Savannah–Atlanta run on its own.
Drive-day math.49 CFR 395.3 allows a property-carrying driver up to 11 hours of driving after 10 consecutive hours off duty (395.3(a)(1) and (a)(3)(i)), no driving after 14 consecutive hours after coming on duty, a window that off-duty breaks do not extend (395.3(a)(2)), and no driving once more than 8 hours of driving time have passed without a consecutive 30-minute interruption (395.3(a)(3)(ii)). Drive time is miles divided by a 50 mph planning average. OSRM's free-flow times on these three lanes work out to 50–54 mph; rounding down leaves room for fuel, scales and the metro approaches.
Freight flows. Tonnage from the Freight Analysis Framework, produced by BTS with FHWA: state-to-state truck totals on this hub, regional figures on the corridor pages, always quoted with the FAF version, mode and data year.
Congestion. ATRI's 2026 Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks, built from truck GPS data, for named trouble spots on each approach.
Port activity. Dated releases from the Georgia Ports Authority and SC Ports where a corridor touches a port.
Market direction. DAT's free weekly dry van report, linked and described as direction only. Its figures are DAT's to publish.
Planning estimates, not quotes. A corridor page can show that a 250-mile run fits easily in one driving day. It cannot say what a specific load will cost next Tuesday, and it does not try to.
Corridor guides
Three lanes, documented
Each page is written for one lane and stands on its own. Pick the one that matches your freight.
Pages are added only where there is real lane detail to document: a published distance, a drive day that can be worked through under the hours-of-service rules, named congestion points and freight-flow data for the states or regions the lane connects. A city name dropped into a template does not meet that bar, so there are no city pages here. If you ship a recurring dry van lane inside the Southeast footprint that is not covered yet, tell us about it; the lanes shippers bring to us are the first ones considered. The recurring lanes page explains what a useful lane schedule includes.
Two of the three lanes are almost exactly the same length, which is the clearest argument for treating corridors one at a time. Savannah–Atlanta and Savannah–Charlotte are both about 250 miles and about five hours of driving, yet they share no interstate, cross a different number of states and run into different bottlenecks.
The three corridors as a schematic. Miles are the OSRM driving routes used on each corridor page; interstate lengths are from FHWA's Route Log (January 2026). The lower panel stacks one driver's planning day, about 2 hours at each dock plus driving at 50 mph, against the 14-hour window in 49 CFR 395.3(a)(2). Driving stays far below the 11-hour limit on all three.
Savannah ↔ Atlanta
Savannah ↔ Charlotte
Columbia ↔ Charlotte
Distance (OSRM)
≈247 mi
≈250 mi
≈92 mi
Main interstates
I-16, I-75
I-95, I-26, I-77
I-77
States on the route
Georgia only
GA, SC, NC
SC, NC
Driving at 50 mph
≈4.9 h
≈5.0 h
≈1.8 h
Loaded legs per driver day
One
One
Two can fit if both docks turn in about 2 h
ATRI 2026 bottlenecks on the approach
McDonough, I-75 (No. 10); Atlanta, I-75 at I-675 (No. 74)
Charlotte, I-77 at I-485 South (No. 44)
Charlotte, I-77 at I-485 South (No. 44)
FAF truck tons, 2024 (state pair)
Georgia intrastate: 295.5 million
GA→NC 7.9 million; NC→GA 7.7 million
SC→NC 14.9 million; NC→SC 16.7 million
Two readings. First, none of these lanes comes near the 11-hour driving limit, and none reaches the 8 hours of driving that triggers the 30-minute break, so none needs a second driving day. When a load on these corridors delivers the next morning, the cause is dock time, receiving hours and the 10-hour off-duty rule, not distance. Second, the short lane behaves differently: at about 92 miles, Columbia–Charlotte can carry two loaded legs in one driver's day when both docks turn quickly, which changes how a carrier looks at the return trip.
Market context
Checked October 22, 2026
Spot market direction, two dated reports. DAT's weekly Dry Van Report published October 13, 2026, covering the week ending October 10, had the national dry van spot rate moving up week over week while load posts fell and posted trucks rose, so the load-to-truck ratio eased. DAT's Southeast and Carolinas origin regions edged up on the week and sit well above a year earlier; Florida–South Georgia slipped. The report published October 19, covering the week ending October 17, had the national rate essentially unchanged and the Southeast, Carolinas, Florida–South Georgia and Lower Atlantic regions all slightly lower. We describe direction only; the figures are DAT's to publish. DAT Trendlines has the free weekly snapshot.
State-to-state truck flows. In the Freight Analysis Framework (FAF5.7.1, 2024 estimates, truck mode, queried October 18, 2026), trucks moved about 16.7 million tons from North Carolina to South Carolina and 14.9 million tons the other way, roughly double the Georgia–North Carolina pair (7.9 million tons north, 7.7 million south). Georgia's intrastate figure, 295.5 million tons, is the largest in the set but includes every local move in the state, so it overstates any one lane. These are state totals for all commodities and all truck types: they show the size of a state pair, not the direction of a particular metro lane. BTS released the FAF 6 benchmark, built on 2022 data, on July 31, 2026. The Savannah–Atlanta page already uses its separate Atlanta and Savannah regions, and the state totals here will move to FAF 6 once it publishes annual estimates for later years.
Port activity. The Georgia Ports Authority reported on October 7, 2026 that Savannah handled a record 504,015 TEUs in September, up 3.7% from a year earlier, and more than 1.5 million TEUs in its fiscal first quarter. The release credits Savannah's proximity to major retail distribution centers. Freight unloaded from containers at port-area warehouses and reloaded into 53-foot vans is the part of that flow the Savannah corridor pages deal with.
For a dated weekly summary across diesel, van and flatbed direction, see the Freight Market Pulse.
Worked example (illustrative)
How to read two corridor pages for one week's freight. A Savannah-area import warehouse has two full vans ready Tuesday at 1:00 p.m.: Load A, 22 pallets for a metro Atlanta distribution center, and Load B, 24 pallets for a Charlotte-area distribution center. Both receivers want a Wednesday morning appointment. Assumptions: the driver comes on duty at 11:30 a.m., loading takes 2 hours, 50 mph average.
Question
Load A: to Atlanta
Load B: to Charlotte
Miles and route
≈247 mi, I-16 then I-75, all in Georgia
≈250 mi, I-95, I-26 and I-77 through South Carolina
Driving time
≈4.9 h
≈5.0 h
Day one
Rolling at 3:00 p.m.; near the receiver about 8:00 p.m., with evening I-75 traffic as the swing factor
Rolling at 3:00 p.m.; near the receiver about 8:00 p.m., with I-77 into south Charlotte as the swing factor
Is the run legal?
Yes. The 14-hour window that opened at 11:30 a.m. closes at 1:30 a.m. (395.3(a)(2)), and 5 hours of driving is well inside the 11-hour limit.
Earliest realistic appointment
Off duty about 8:30 p.m. plus 10 consecutive hours off (395.3(a)(1)) means back on duty about 6:30 a.m. A 6:00 a.m. slot does not work; ask for 7:00 a.m. or later.
Bottleneck to watch
McDonough on I-75, then I-75 at I-675
I-77 at I-485 South
Reading: nearly the same miles and driving time and the same appointment arithmetic, but different roads, different trouble spots and a different set of states behind each lane. Had both loads been ready at 10:00 a.m., the trucks would be off duty by late afternoon and a 6:00 a.m. appointment would be easy. The ready time, not the distance, decides the earliest delivery slot on these lanes.
What to include in a request on any corridor
The corridor pages go into lane-specific detail, but every request on every lane needs the same core facts:
Pickup and delivery ZIP codes, and whether either end is a port-area warehouse, plant or retail distribution center
Ready date and time, and your dock's shipping hours
The delivery appointment: the window, who books it, and the PO or appointment number
Pallet count, footprint, whether the freight stacks, and total weight (the pallet calculator helps)
Live load or drop trailer at each end
The receiver's unloading policy, including lumper fees and detention free time
A planning guide for one specific dry van lane, such as Savannah to Atlanta. It works through the miles, the drive day under federal hours-of-service rules, the interstates and their known bottlenecks, which way freight tends to flow, seasonal pressure points and what to include in a request. It is written for shippers sizing up a lane, not as a price list.
Are the transit times on these pages quotes or commitments?
No. They are planning estimates built from published distances, the limits in 49 CFR 395.3 and a stated 50 mph average. Real timing depends on where the truck starts, how long each dock takes and the receiver's appointment. Averstone Logistics does not quote shipments before its FMCSA broker registration is active, so nothing on these pages is a price or a delivery promise.
Why are there only three corridors?
Because a page is published only when there is enough lane-specific detail to make it useful: a sourced distance, a worked drive day, named congestion points and sourced freight-flow data for the lane's states or regions. A page for every city pair would repeat one template with the names changed, which helps no one plan a load. If your lane is missing, tell us about it.
Do the Savannah corridor pages cover container drayage from the port?
No. Drayage is outside the scope of this site, along with rail, cross-border and temperature-controlled freight. The Savannah pages start where a container has already been unloaded, at a port-area warehouse, transload facility or distribution center, and the freight moves on in a 53-foot dry van.
Why use 50 mph instead of the speed limit?
Because a truck's average over a whole run is always lower than its highway speed. The OSRM routing engine's free-flow estimates for these three lanes work out to 50–54 mph before any traffic, fuel stop or scale house. Rounding down to 50 mph gives a planning figure that still holds when the approaches into Atlanta or Charlotte slow down.
Why don't the corridor pages publish rates per mile?
Spot rates change week to week, and the most-cited weekly figures are DAT's own data, so these pages link to DAT's free weekly dry van report instead of reprinting it. Each corridor page describes only the direction of the market, next to dated public data from the Freight Analysis Framework and the port authorities.
How current is the information?
Each page shows a last-reviewed date and lists its sources. Distances and hours-of-service rules rarely change; market direction changes weekly and is dated where it appears. The state-to-state truck totals on this hub are FAF5.7.1 estimates for 2024, the latest annual year in FAF5. Each corridor page names the FAF version, mode and data year it uses. For week-to-week direction, see the Freight Market Pulse.
Free download
Retail DC Delivery Checklist
POs, appointments, pallet specs and paperwork — what receivers check before they accept your load.
Shipping on one of these lanes?
Tell us the lane, the ready time and the delivery appointment. We'll contact you the day our registration is active.
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