On-time performance is one of the main criteria used by our customers in their decisions to purchase our services. We measure on-time performance for every shipment relative to schedules we have contracted with our shippers.

Although the main penalty for being late is the strain it places on our shippers' goodwill and damage to our company's reputation, poor performance in one area ripples through our whole network. Furthermore, some contracts include explicit monetary penalties for lateness.

The accompanying chart illustrates our on-time performance over the last three months.

For most of our retail shippers, being late more than ten percent of the time or by more than one hour represents unacceptable performance. We are committed to applying our detailed process improvement techniques to insure that we perform within parameters demanded by our customers.

Results of prior service analysis indicate that in order to maintain acceptable performance for this class of shipper, we need to maintain schedules that enable our drivers to arrive approximately 10 percent sooner than expected transit times. In other words, that meant scheduling and coordinating trips so that drivers can safely and legally arrive one hour early for every ten hours of expected transit time.