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The trucking industry in the US moves 71% of all freight across the US. With the recent uptick in lead operations, just-in-time delivery, and eCommerce businesses, both businesses and the trucking industry are under increasing pressure to make freight deliveries faster and cheaper. While less-than-truckload (LTL) continues to be an efficient shipping option for many businesses, the more agile shippers need something even better – shared truckload.
Shared Truckload (STL) addresses some of the problems that are inherent to LTL, and improves on it to deliver a faster, more efficient, and more responsible shipping solution for businesses.
What is Shared Truckload?
Shared Truckload is exactly what it sounds like – you share the space of a mid-size trailer.
It maximizes the space utilization of a trailer by pooling together shipments from multiple shippers. However, unlike LTL, Shared Truckload is a multi-stop full truckload solution. There’s no ideal freight weight, or size requirements for Shared Truckload, and it’s suited for anything between 1 to 24 pallets of shipments.
Shared Truckload vs. Less Than Truckload: Why Should You Choose Shared Truckload?
Between STL and LTL, there’s no one perfect solution for businesses. The unique requirements of your business determine the ideal choice of a freight solution. Here are some of the benefits offered by STL that make it a better choice for certain businesses:
- Reduced Costs
STL can easily save businesses 20% or more on their shipments. STL providers charge businesses for only the space they utilize in the trailer. Whether you are shipping a mid-size freight, or something smaller, you pay for only your shipment and not for the entire trailer.
- Faster Delivery
Shared truckload brings lean operations to all businesses. Instead of waiting for their inventory to accumulate into truckload or LTL quantities, businesses can send their freight in shorter quantities, thereby drastically improving their delivery speed.
- Minimum to No Damage
There’s no cross-docking with STL. Your freight is never moved from one truck to another during transit. In fact, right from pickup to delivery, your freight is transported in the same truck. So, no loading and unloading at multiple points. This prevents a surprising amount of potential damage to freight shipments, especially when the products are cumbersome and difficult to handle.
- Complete Control
No more missed appointments, no more unmet delivery deadlines. The shared truckload shipment is transported over a direct route by the same driver on the same truck. So, you get more predictable transit times and an assured delivery deadline.
· Eliminates the need for using confusing and difficult Freight Class and NMFC Codes
Does figuring out the
best freight class and NMFC code for your freight get confusing and costly at times? Shared Truckload freight shipping
eliminates this tedious and confusing task by only charging you for the linear
feet of truck space your freight requires.
No more freight class look ups in class IT, no more density calculations, and
no more painstakingly trying to figure out whether your palletize and non-palletized
freight loads run at different classes! Welcome to the simplicity of Shared Truckload
Shipping!
See additional resources used in the research of this article:
https://www.supplychain247.com/article/shared_truckload_smarter_shipping_for_the_modern_world
Conclusion
Besides the business benefits, a shared truckload also makes you greener. By eliminating the routing inefficiencies of LTL’s hub-and-spoke model, STL reduces your carbon footprint.
Easy Logistics Management is working with some of the best minds at MIT to develop a highly optimized STL solution to revolutionize trucking services in the US. Stay tuned to know more about our upcoming STL service due to market in the fall 2021. Contact us for more information and quotes with our new evolving shared truckload service offering!
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