Estimate calories and kilojoules burned during a truck driving or delivery shift, based on your body weight, shift duration, and whether you're mostly driving or spending real time loading and unloading. Long-haul truckies and local delivery drivers alike can mix both — pick whichever tier best matches how most of your shift was actually spent, or run the calculator twice and add the results together.
Truck driver calorie burn is estimated with calories = MET × body weight (kg) × shift duration (hours), using two MET values from the Occupation table of the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: driving a delivery truck, taxi, shuttle bus or school bus (MET 2.0) and loading and unloading the truck — tying down the load, standing, walking, carrying heavy loads (MET 6.5). An 85 kg driver over an 8-hour shift burns around 1,360 kcal (about 5,690 kJ) purely driving, versus around 4,420 kcal (about 18,493 kJ) if that entire shift were spent loading and unloading. Only one of these two MET values is a Compendium-flagged estimate rather than a literature-confirmed figure — see the disclosure below for exactly which one.
| Activity | MET | Calories | Kilojoules |
|---|
The calculation combines a MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) value for the type of work involved, your body weight, and how long your shift lasted. This calculator uses two MET values taken directly from the Occupation table of the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: driving (delivery truck, taxi, shuttle bus, school bus) (code 11767, MET 2.0), and loading and unloading the truck — tying down load, standing, walking, carrying heavy loads (code 11766, MET 6.5).
| Activity | MET | Calories (85 kg, 8 hr) | Kilojoules |
|---|---|---|---|
| Driving (delivery truck, taxi, shuttle bus, school bus) | 2.0 | 1,360 kcal | 5,690 kJ |
| Loading and unloading the truck | 6.5 | 4,420 kcal | 18,493 kJ |
It's worth being upfront about how different these two parts of a driving shift actually are, because the calories-burned gap between them is large. Driving (MET 2.0) is close to a seated, low-movement task — hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, with very little large-muscle activity, similar in intensity to sitting at a desk. Loading and unloading the truck (MET 6.5) is a completely different kind of effort: standing, walking around the vehicle, carrying heavy loads, and tying down cargo, which sits in moderate-to-vigorous intensity territory — more like general labouring work than driving.
Because the two tasks are so different in intensity, the honest way to use this calculator is to think about what most of your shift actually involved. A long-haul driver spending nine hours on the highway with a quick 20-minute dock stop belongs almost entirely in the driving tier. A local delivery driver doing multiple stops with real hands-on unloading at each one should weight their result more heavily toward the loading/unloading tier, or split their shift into a driving block and a loading block and add the two results together.
Jobs that involve long periods of sitting, like truck driving, are associated with higher risks of weight gain, cardiovascular strain, and musculoskeletal issues such as back and neck pain, particularly when combined with irregular meal times, limited access to healthy food at truck stops, and disrupted sleep from long-haul or shift schedules. Fatigue is also a well-recognised safety issue in the industry, which is why Australia's Heavy Vehicle National Law sets work and rest hour limits for drivers. None of this means truck driving is unhealthy by default, but it does mean drivers often need to be more deliberate about movement, diet, and rest than people in more physically active jobs.
Simple habits that many drivers find useful include taking a brisk walk around the vehicle or rest stop during scheduled fatigue breaks, doing the loading and unloading personally rather than always handballing it off, parking further from the depot entrance, using rest stops for a few minutes of stretching, and keeping healthy snacks on hand to avoid relying entirely on servo food. None of this needs to be a formal workout — small bursts of movement built into an already long shift can add up over a week.
This table holds activity constant at driving (MET 2.0) for a full 8-hour shift, so you can see how much body weight alone changes the total.
| Body Weight | MET | Calories (8 hr) | Kilojoules |
|---|---|---|---|
| 65 kg | 2.0 | 1,040 kcal | 4,351 kJ |
| 75 kg | 2.0 | 1,200 kcal | 5,021 kJ |
| 85 kg | 2.0 | 1,360 kcal | 5,690 kJ |
| 95 kg | 2.0 | 1,520 kcal | 6,360 kJ |
| 105 kg | 2.0 | 1,680 kcal | 7,029 kJ |
Many Australian truck driving shifts run somewhere between 8 and 12 hours, in line with fatigue management rules under the Heavy Vehicle National Law. Here body weight is fixed at 85 kg while both shift length and activity type change, so you can compare how much a longer shift and a harder activity each add to the total.
| Shift Duration | Driving (MET 2.0) | Loading/Unloading (MET 6.5) |
|---|---|---|
| 4 hours | 680 kcal / 2,845 kJ | 2,210 kcal / 9,247 kJ |
| 8 hours | 1,360 kcal / 5,690 kJ | 4,420 kcal / 18,493 kJ |
| 10 hours | 1,700 kcal / 7,113 kJ | 5,525 kcal / 23,117 kJ |
| 12 hours | 2,040 kcal / 8,535 kJ | 6,630 kcal / 27,740 kJ |
Australian nutrition panels list energy in kilojoules, not calories, so it's worth converting your shift into the same unit your food packaging uses. Multiply your calorie figure by 4.184 to get kilojoules. An 85 kg driver's 8-hour shift burns about 1,360 kcal, roughly 5,690 kJ, if spent purely driving, while the same duration spent loading and unloading comes in considerably higher at about 4,420 kcal, roughly 18,493 kJ — a useful pair of figures to weigh up against the energy value printed on a servo pie, drink, or snack picked up along the way.
How many calories do truck drivers burn during a shift?
It depends on how much of the shift is spent driving versus loading and unloading. An 85 kg driver over an 8-hour shift burns around 1,360 kcal (about 5,690 kJ) if the whole shift is spent driving (MET 2.0), or around 4,420 kcal (about 18,493 kJ) if the whole shift is spent loading and unloading the truck (MET 6.5). Most real shifts sit somewhere between these two figures, since they mix time behind the wheel with time on the dock. Enter your own weight and shift length in the calculator above for a personalised figure.
Is truck driving a sedentary job?
The driving portion of the job is close to sedentary — sitting behind the wheel for hours at a time rates at MET 2.0 in the Compendium of Physical Activities, only slightly above resting. However, most truck driving and delivery roles aren't purely sedentary, because they also involve loading and unloading, checking straps and tie-downs, walking around the vehicle, and other physical tasks that rate at MET 6.5 — moderate-to-vigorous intensity. Whether the overall job feels sedentary depends heavily on how much time is spent on the road versus on the dock.
How is calories burned truck driving calculated?
The calculation multiplies a MET (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) value for the type of work by your body weight in kilograms and your shift duration in hours: calories = MET × weight (kg) × duration (hours). This calculator uses two MET values taken directly from the Occupation table of the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: driving (delivery truck, taxi, shuttle bus, school bus) (code 11767, MET 2.0), and loading and unloading the truck — tying down load, standing, walking, carrying heavy loads (code 11766, MET 6.5).
Which MET value on this page is estimated rather than literature-confirmed?
Of the two MET values used on this page, only one is flagged in the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities as an estimated figure rather than a value confirmed by dedicated published research: loading and unloading the truck (MET 6.5, code 11766). The driving value (MET 2.0, code 11767) is not flagged as estimated in the Compendium — it is a literature-supported figure. We're disclosing this distinction plainly rather than presenting both numbers as if they carried the same level of evidence. Treat the loading/unloading result as a reasonable planning estimate, and the driving result as the more evidence-backed figure on this page.
Does loading and unloading make a big difference to a driver's calorie burn?
Yes, a large one. Loading and unloading the truck (MET 6.5) burns more than three times as many calories per hour as driving alone (MET 2.0), because it involves standing, walking, carrying heavy loads, and tying down cargo rather than sitting still. For an 85 kg driver, that's the difference between roughly 170 kcal and 552 kcal for every hour spent on each task. A shift that includes a solid stretch of hands-on loading work will burn noticeably more than one spent entirely behind the wheel, even if both shifts run the same total length.
What are the health risks of a mostly-driving job like truck driving?
Jobs that involve long periods of sitting, like truck driving, are associated with higher risks of weight gain, cardiovascular strain, and musculoskeletal issues such as back and neck pain, particularly when combined with irregular meal times, limited access to healthy food at truck stops, and disrupted sleep from long-haul or shift schedules. Fatigue is also a well-recognised safety issue in the industry, which is why Australia's Heavy Vehicle National Law sets work and rest hour limits for drivers. None of this means truck driving is unhealthy by default, but it does mean drivers often need to be more deliberate about movement, diet, and rest than people in more physically active jobs.
How can truck drivers stay active during long shifts?
Simple habits that many drivers find useful include taking a brisk walk around the vehicle or rest stop during scheduled fatigue breaks, doing the loading and unloading personally rather than always handballing it off, parking further from the depot entrance, using rest stops for a few minutes of stretching, and keeping healthy snacks on hand to avoid relying entirely on servo food. None of this needs to be a formal workout — small bursts of movement built into an already long shift can add up over a week.
What are the limitations of this calorie estimate?
This calculator multiplies a MET value by your body weight and shift duration, which gives a reasonable planning estimate rather than a personalised measurement. It can't account for how much of your actual shift was spent driving versus loading and unloading, your fitness level, terrain or traffic conditions, how heavy individual loads are, or the loading/unloading MET value being a Compendium estimate rather than a literature-confirmed figure. Treat the result as a sensible planning figure for a driving or delivery shift, not an exact physiological measurement.