Bryant Coll believes he’s finally achieving his goals in trucking. Over the last 13 months, Coll’s been participating in Schneider National’s percentage pay-based program for leased owner-operators. “You have a feeling of truly being an owner-operator running your business,” says Indianapolis-based Coll. “You can pick and choose loads and control your own destiny a lot better.”

Owner-operator Joe Haumann, after running independent from 2005 on, last July leased to Barr-Nunn Transportation. Haumann is quite content to take what dispatch gives him and get paid by the mile, along with earning additional compensation. “To be a dispatcher, driver and mechanic combined is too many responsibilities that I’m not willing to put in the time for,” he says.

Coll and Haumann are enjoying the benefits of pay package changes that have been spreading through the industry. While a simple mileage-based pay remains the standard, a growing number of companies are either experimenting with different mileage plans or switching to revenue-share programs. Some carriers are adjusting mileage pay rates to emphasize regional or shorter hauls or adding perks such as pay for unloading, layovers and multiple-stop runs.

The growth of such pay plan variations has been rapid, says Gordon Klemp, principal of National Transportation Institute, publisher of the National Survey of Driver Wages. “Usually, we see changes for owner-operators occur fairly slowly. But the evolution of some of these has been more rapid than in the 15 years we’ve been around.”

Most carriers trying new plans either are seeking to expand their owner-operator lineup in a depressed market or positioning themselves for a market rebound. Another motivation is retaining strong contractors.

“We can increase our fleet size a little bit by adding more owner-operators and not have to take on more new equipment,” says Jeff Blank, Barr-Nunn’s director of recruiting. “And we can provide more capacity to our customers as well.”

Klemp says one national carrier has about 300 different pay plans for leased owner-operators that adjust according to routes and length of haul. (That carrier did not respond to requests for an interview.)