Windshield Time: What It Costs and How to Measure It

What is windshield time?

Windshield time is the paid time a technician spends driving instead of servicing customers, counted from where the truck starts the day until it parks.

Field service companies also call it drive time or travel time. For a pest control company it's the hours a licensed tech spends behind the wheel, paid, with nothing billed. It includes three drives, and most offices only look at one of them:

• The drive out: from where the truck starts (the shop, or the tech's home if trucks go home) to the first stop.
• The drives between stops. This is the part a route map shows.
• The drive back at the end of the day.

The first and last drives are easy to miss because they don't sit between two appointments. They can be the biggest piece. In one pest company's routes we studied, about half of each tech-day's miles were the drive out from where the truck starts and back.

How do you calculate windshield time?

Measure it as a share of the paid day, so days of different lengths compare fairly:

Windshield time share = hours driving ÷ paid hours

A tech paid for 9 hours who drives 3 of them has a windshield time share of 33%. Track miles beside it, because miles are what the vehicle costs:

Miles per stop = miles driven ÷ completed stops

Five rules keep the numbers honest:

• Start where the truck starts. If trucks go home at night, the day starts at the tech's home, not the shop.
• Use what was driven, not what was planned. GPS or vehicle tracking shows the real day. A route map shows the plan.
• Count completed stops only. A skipped or canceled stop still cost the drive.
• Compare like with like. Season, service mix and territory all move the number. Compare the same tech or area week over week.
• Look at the spread, not just the average. One tech crossing town every day can hide inside a good team average.

What does windshield time cost a pest control company?

Windshield time costs twice: the vehicle and the paid hours.

Sources: IRS standard mileage rates (irs.gov/tax-professionals/standard-mileage-rates); BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Pest Control Workers (bls.gov/ooh/building-and-grounds-cleaning/pest-control-workers.htm). Checked Nov 3, 2026.

Here's the math for one tech who drives 80 miles and 2.5 hours a day: 80 miles at 76 cents is $60.80, and 2.5 hours at $21.75 is about $54.38. That's about $115 a day, or about $28,800 a year over 250 working days, for one tech. Use your own mileage cost and loaded labor rate for the real number.

The bigger cost is what the hours could have been. An hour saved on the road is room for another stop, and a team that drives less can take on new customers without adding a truck.

What drives windshield time up?

Windshield time is mostly decided before the tech starts the truck:

• Territories that ignore where trucks start. A route built around the shop costs extra miles every day for a tech who starts from home.
• Bookings that land on any open spot. A new sale booked on a route across town adds miles to that day and every recurring visit after it.
• Reschedules and cancels. Each one leaves a gap or a stray stop that the rest of the route drives around.
• Specialists and preferred techs. Termite, commercial and other specialist work needs a specific tech, who may cross other techs' areas to reach it.
• A plan built once. A month planned at the start is at its best the day it's built. By the time a week arrives, new sales, cancels and reschedules have pulled it apart.

How do you reduce windshield time?

These work with whatever software you run today:

1. Build territories around where each truck starts, not around the shop.
2. Book new work near existing stops. When you book by phone, use your software's recommended-routes view, and put the customer's usual tech first.
3. Keep flexible visits for the gaps. Recurring visits with a window can fill the holes cancels leave.
4. Set reschedule limits so a customer can't push a visit across the calendar.
5. Re-plan the days that can still move, before reminders go out. Weekly is better than monthly.
6. Measure it every week by tech and by area, and look at the outliers first.

Roonly does the booking half of this today. When your office turns it on, new sales, revisits and reschedules Roonly books land on the tech who's already nearby, covered in pest control scheduling software. Coming soon: every night Roonly re-plans the days ahead with whatever changed, and your office approves.

In a backtest on four weeks of a pest company's real routes, Roonly's plans drove 21% fewer miles with the same techs on the same days. Planned ahead, 25% fewer miles and 24% less driving. No tech gets more than 18 stops in a day. The comparison is with the routes as they were planned and driven, and every plan kept promised windows, preferred techs and specialists. More on pest control route planning.

Windshield time vs route density

Windshield time measures the driving. Route density measures the work: stops per tech-day and per mile. They move together. Denser routes mean less windshield time, and both get worse when bookings land far from the route.

Sources: Roonly analysis of four weeks of one pest company's routes, Oct 2026 (company unnamed); IRS standard mileage rates (irs.gov); BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Pest Control Workers (bls.gov). Checked Nov 3, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does windshield time mean?

Windshield time is the paid time a field technician spends driving instead of working at a customer's property. It includes the drive out from where the truck starts, the drives between stops and the drive back.

Does the drive from home count as windshield time?

For measuring routes, yes. If trucks go home at night, the day's first and last drives start and end there. Leaving them out can hide a large share of the miles. Whether that time is paid is a separate question for your payroll and employment advisers.

How do you calculate windshield time?

Divide the hours a tech spends driving by their paid hours for the day. Track miles per stop beside it, using what was actually driven from GPS or vehicle tracking, not the planned route.

How much does windshield time cost?

Add the vehicle cost and the paid time. At the IRS's 76 cents a mile and the median pest control worker's $21.75 an hour, 80 miles and 2.5 hours of driving cost about $115 a day for one tech.

How much windshield time is normal for a pest control tech?

There's no reliable public benchmark, and published figures vary widely. It depends on territory, density and service mix. Measure your own share of the paid day and track it by tech and area every week.

How do you reduce windshield time?

Build territories around where trucks start, book new work near existing stops, keep flexible visits for gaps, set reschedule limits, and re-plan the days that can still move before reminders go out.