Tuesday 18 February 2014

How The LTL Carrier Shipping Method Operates

By Krystal Branch


The shipment of goods all over the world can only be done through road transport, water, air and railroads. The shipment over the land surface tends to be more dependent on trucks as the rail transport is usually considered to be more inconvenient in reference to railroad timetables that end up with time wastage. When it comes to road shipment industry, there are three options through which shipment can be done. These are parcel shipment, Full Truck Load (FTL) and Less Than Truck Load (LTL carrier).

Less Than Truck Loads is a weight shipment category to goods that are larger in size as compared to parcels but are too small to be transported independently in trucks as FTLs. This brings about the difference in approach adopted in shipping the goods. The LTL specializes in shipping a collection of goods to a similar geographical destination in a single truck unlike the FTL where only goods destined to a particular delivery location are shipped together.

Instead of a direct route from one point to the other, the freight is broken down and gets sorted before being assigned to the truck driver that then takes a specific route to a given destination. The process of physically breaking bulk shipments apart after which they are organized to intended destination allow operators come up with a more effective course covering multiple deliveries. The drivers also get familiar with their routes.

The impact is that the good goes through several steps from the sender to the receiver and is likely to take more time as opposed to the method where a single truck is used from the sender to the receiver. The truck drivers also get familiar with their routes which is obviously and advantage to them.

After this, they are sorted with the ones destined for similar destination packed in the same outbound trucks. They are then shipped to the appropriate regional terminals from where the local vehicles then pick them up for delivery to the final receiver.

It is however important to plan very well ahead so that the delivery are timely to avoid any delay. Normally, the time of delivery can be estimated to take up to ten working days but depending on nature of goods and their destination, the delivery in the second day is still possible. LTL carriers are known to offer better rates per pound that parcel shipment services. They also accept larger goods that will not normally be shipped in parcel categories.

This means that the client should keenly study the shipment firm in terms of efficiency and the reliability. The industry players have been able to stabilize this market, even with staggering economic growth as most shippers opting to offer better customer service with good pricing strategies.

Time and cost are two important factors in success of any business. The trick is therefore to organized goods in a timely manner so that shipment through LTL carrier can start early enough to avoid any delay and inconvenience.




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