A Guide To LTL Freight Shipping

Shipping big and small consignments is a routine task and essential part for many businesses/individuals. Carrier services have thus gained much importance as they assist in transporting parcels and consignments within cities, states and even continents. The cost effective freight shipping companies divide the kind of products being transported according to their weight and size. Based on this, the price and mode of transport is fixed. In the following article, we’ll be discussing about basic ad important information about LTL shipping consignments or goods.

Size matters

LTL refers to Low-Then-Truckload. In this category, all the consignments falling in the weight category of 68 to 10,000 Kg are considered for transport. Those lower than 68 Kgs are considered as parcels and those above 10,000K gs, are Full-Truck-Load consignments. For LTL, using large trailers would result in sheer wastage of space and the process won’t be economical on the sender’s front. To overcome this issue, separate LTL category has been evolved and all such goods are transported in separate trailers suitable for their size and weight.

What are you paying for?

Van trailers are generally used for LTL Freight shipping. The vans used here are optimally equipped with:

• Straps: Plastic, steel and polyester straps to tie up the packed goods so as to avoid breaking, roll over or disorientation, which may harm the product inside.
• Temperature control: While some goods (fish, vegetables, fruits, plants etc) may require being stored at particular temperature and thus separating transport vans with temperature control facilities are also available.
• Terminal: To ensure efficient utilization of space, the trailer vans are fitted with special detachable barriers which can be used to divide the carrying space into terminals or compartments to store variedly sized transport units.
• Slippers: Only some trailer vans which need to carry goods outside the city are provided with slipper facility for the driver. All others which need to rotate in the city itself lack the slippers.
• Roll over doors: The trailers have roll over doors which ensure tight and securely enclosed products. Some trailers also have automatic locking system, ensuring better safety of the goods inside.

LTL shipping starts with collecting the goods from the sender and re-collecting all of them at the LTL shipping hub. Here the goods are sorted majorly region wise and loaded into LTL van trailers. As a trailer gets filled, it is given a green signal for delivery of the loaded stuff to their specific receivers or final destinations. With the above features and more, LTL freight shipping offers to be economical and convenient alternative to other shipment options especially in cases, where regular pick up and drop service are required.