Delivery Service Adds 32 Minutes To Arrival Windows As Diesel Hits $6.19
Hartfield Delivery says the extra time covers record fuel costs, economy cruising speeds, and a freight train it cannot schedule around.
WAUKESHA — Hartfield Delivery, a three-year-old refrigerated-truck company based in Waukesha, announced this week that it is adding 32 minutes to its standard same-day delivery window across Waukesha County, citing Wisconsin diesel prices that reached an all-time record of $6.19 per gallon.
The company operates 12 trucks and serves roughly 340 regular clients. Owner Marcus Hartfield, 47, said the fuel increase adds approximately $47 to a typical delivery route. With the fleet averaging three routes per truck per day, the change costs the company $1,692 for each operating day, and lowers its operating margin by 18 percent, its first contraction since 2023.
"2023 was our founding year, so that one was foundational," Hartfield said. "This one is different. This one has a number attached."
Where The 32 Minutes Went
Hartfield provided this newspaper with a written breakdown of the added time, which Hartfield said was assembled by dispatcher Renata Kowalczyk over one weekend and a pot of coffee. The 32 minutes are allocated as follows.
11 minutes for "economy cruising," under which all 12 trucks are now governed to 57 miles per hour on Highway 59 and Highway 164, down from 64.
14 minutes for what the company calls "the railroad contingency," a buffer for the downtown Waukesha crossing, where freight trains regularly block Broadway and occasionally stop on the crossing altogether.
7 minutes for "the downtown one-way variable," which Hartfield declined to define further.
"Fourteen is not enough for the train," Hartfield said. "The train can sit there for 30. But we've done the math, and if you cover the whole train we'd be telling people 3 o'clock for a 10 o'clock stop. Nobody believes that. So we cover about half."
"We cover about half."
— Marcus Hartfield, owner, Hartfield Delivery
When the crossing is occupied, the company's routing software directs drivers to the Newhall Avenue underpass between West Avenue and Grand Avenue, the only route under the tracks. Driver Tim Rasmussen, 52, who has worked the downtown route for two years, said the detour adds six minutes and "a real feeling of getting away with something."
Pump Prices
Each Hartfield truck carries a 75-gallon tank, which at Thursday's price costs $464.25 to fill. Hartfield has stood at a pump twice this month while the total was still climbing and said it was "felt in the molars." The company has elected not to raise the company's per-stop fuel surcharge, currently $3.50, and to lengthen the window instead.
"A customer will pay a dollar more before they'll wait a minute more," Hartfield said. "That's national research. But here, I think people have been waiting on that train their whole lives. We're just putting it in writing."
Customers Adjust
Reaction among the company's 340 regular clients has been measured. A downtown boutique that has displayed a "Closing Sale" sign since 2019 said the extra time would have no effect on its operations, adding that it was not really closing.
Ned England, 70, of Backslide Way, who receives a weekly Hartfield delivery of two cases of Diet Rite and a 12-pack of string cheese, said the new window creates a scheduling conflict for his lawn-chair stakeouts. The old window closed at 1 p.m. The new one closes at 1:32, which overlaps the hospital shift change and its traffic surge.
"Now I've got two objectives and one chair," England said. "I have to watch the street for the radar gun and watch the street for the truck. It's the same street, so I'm not complaining. But the two things do not always arrive at the same speed."
England said he has already moved his 3-quart cooler from the porch to the front walk, "so the driver has one fewer excuse."
A New Standard
Hartfield said the company's on-time rate measured against the new window was 98 percent as of Wednesday. Measured against the old window, the figure is 71 percent, a number the company has retired.
Asked whether the window would shrink if diesel prices fall, Hartfield said Hartfield Delivery would "monitor the situation" and that, in Hartfield's experience, "the train doesn't care what diesel costs."