Shipping Best Practices

The shipping option that’s right for you depends on either the number of pallets you need to move or the amount of linear feet your freight will take up.

If you’re shipping one to five pallets of freight (or 12 linear feet of trailer space or less), standard LTL is by far your most cost-effective option.

For shipments of six to 12 pallets (between 12 and 28 linear feet), you can ship standard LTL, but partial truckload and volume LTL will also be reasonable alternatives for you. Keep in mind, though, that there is less capacity in the market for these two options.

To ship more than 12 pallets or 28 linear feet of trailer space, you will need to book a full truck.

Intermodal shipping is a full truckload conversion product in which your shipment travels in part over the road and in part by railroad.

To ship intermodal, you’ll need to have a full truckload of freight. For it to really make sense for you, you’ll also need to be shipping it more than 750 miles or so, and you will need to be able to afford a day or two of additional transit time as well.

If all of the above is true for you, intermodal can be a very cost-effective and environmentally friendly alternative to over-the-road shipping.

There’s no way around it — trucks, though necessary, burn a lot of diesel and emit a lot of carbon.

Anytime you can make transportation more efficient, you will help reduce your own carbon footprint and the overall carbon impact of the shipping industry.

There are a number of ways you can achieve this. You can consolidate multiple LTL shipments into a full truckload. You can use LTL when you have only a few pallets to consolidate your freight with another shipper’s. And can ship intermodal for your long-haul truckload freight to get as much of it off the road as you can.

Learn more about how supply chain professionals are approaching sustainability in this original research study