Trucking: Pricing, fixed and variable cost, fedex rates

Question
I am hauling ltl freight.  If I were to come up with a daily rate and then charge per mile, would my miles charged be total miles or one way for each of the deliveries?
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Followup To

Question -
I have been contracted to a major carrier and am now looking to go out on my own.  I've been approached by a previous customer of mine to bid on their freight.  I'm having a lot of trouble determining a fee schedule.  They have given me a couple of examples of freight they ship with Fed Ex (which they receive a 79.8% discount on).  I'm not sure how to structure my pricing.  Do I price the local stuff (10-20 miles) differently than the farther loads?  Could you please give me some direction?
Thank You,
David Sproules

Answer -
Are you talking about truckload or LTL?  How far do you want to go?  Is it just you and 1 truck?  For local work you need to calculate how much you need to make in a day and add all of your operating costs, truck payments, depreciation, taxes, insurance, licenses, fuel, tires, etc.  For this type of local work it's best if you can get a fixed and variable cost structure; flat amount for 8 or 10 hour day plus O/T rate and plust a cost per mile or per hour for the truck.  For long haul T/L freight you will probably price by the mile plus a fuel surcharge.  Then you also have the challenge of getting a return load or coming back empty.  The real key to profitable pricing is to know your costs in detail and don't be afraid to walk away from freight that doesn't pay it's way.  Hope this helps a little.

Answer
There are a couple of ways you could do this depending on the customer's preference.  You could simply "match" the FedEx rates.  Simply go to their website and plug in the zips, class and weight with 79.8% discount.  I think their rates on the short haul LTL will be high enough to cover your presumably lower operating costs.  Just make sure you have a high enough minimum to cover any small shipments.  Are they going to give you several LTL shipments to peddle in a day?  Another approach is to charge mileage (total miles) plus a stop charge for each stop after the first.  This will generally work if you have a few larger deliveries in the same general direction.  If you take this approach be sure to charge total miles including the return empty to origin.  This also works well if your customer has an inbound vendor that can load you on the return.  My big concern would be relying on a single customer but if you have a good working relationship with them it might work.  An the fallback is there is always a demand for good owner opertors.  Good luck.