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there’s no one around to receive the pallet when it shows up at 6 p.m. As such, each of these businesses receive their freight as the truck passes through their destinations which lengthens Dean’s transit timing.įinally - after all the other shippers' freight has been delivered, Dean’s pallet of computer mice shows up for delivery at his receiver - a local high school in Indianapolis, 2 days after its departure. Each of these shippers has an endpoint along the route from Frankfort to Indianapolis as follows:Įach of these businesses have their own priorities, deadlines, customers and supply chains. The LTL carrier servicing Dean’s freight has 5 other shippers utilizing its capacity as well.
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After half an hour of loading, during which time the other freight in the LTL truck is shifted to make room, Dean’s freight - now fully loaded and secure - takes off down Interstate 65 toward Indianapolis. This is a truck that has already been loaded with other freight and needs to be rearranged in order to comfortably - and safely - fit Dean’s computer mice. Two days after Dean requests a truck for his pallet, it shows up. Dean knows that this trip - when done continuously from A to B - takes about two and a half hours. Here is an example scenario to give you a better understanding of how LTL transit timing is dictated:ĭean has one pallet of computer mice that he needs to move from Frankfort, Kentucky, to his customer in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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For the most part, as soon as your truck shows up and your freight is loaded, its transit timing is out of your control. As such, the carrier servicing your freight has also booked other loads to completely fill their trailer and maximize their hours of service (HOS).īecause there’s no limit to the number of stops a carrier can make when filling their trailer to capacity, there’s no guarantee of when your freight’s pickup/delivery timing will be scheduled for. When you choose to ship your freight using LTL capacities you’re agreeing to share trailer space with other interested parties. What Dictates Less-Than-Truckload Freight Transit Time? Additionally, inventory transported with an LTL carrier cannot weigh more than 20,000 total pounds.īecause of the nature of LTL shipping, anything exceeding these criteria qualifies for -and is better served by - partial-truckload shipping. First, any load serviced by an LTL carrier can be no more than 11-12 pallets in quantity or take up 24 feet of space on a 53-foot trailer.
#Ftl vs ltl full#
Since the purpose of LTL services is to provide a solution for companies that don’t need the full capacity of a truck, there are a couple of criteria that must be met for a load to qualify. These businesses are then left sharing trailer space as it goes from pick up location to drop off location with plenty of stops in between. When this is the case, a company works with a transportation partner to put their product onto a truck that’s transporting goods from other businesses with similar capacity requirements. For the most part, this method of shipping freight is used when shippers have as little as a single pallet of inventory to move from A to B. Less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping is a freight transportation service used by shippers around the world. What is Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) Shipping? ⬇️ Listen To The Podcast On This Topic ⬇️ Here at ATS, we’ve offered all three of these services for years so we know exactly how and why transit timings are so varied between them.īy the end of this blog, you’ll have a better understanding of why transit timing varies so much between these three shipment options so that you can better plan out your next load. Like everything else in this industry, the more you’re able to understand these methods for shipping smaller amounts of freight and what influences their transit timing, the better. Why does this happen though? It seems backward, if anything a truck fully loaded with your freight should have a longer transit time than one that has less to move. This can be extremely frustrating especially if you consider that your full-truckload shipments frequently arrive quicker than these other shipping services. If you’ve recently used less-than-truckload or partial-truckload transportation services for your freight, you’re probably wondering why the transit timing for these shipments is so hard to predict, especially at the time of pick up.