Running a trucking company requires more than just a lot of hard work. It requires great drivers, plenty of initial capital, and a logical strategy for loading a truck and getting goods from one place to another.
Anyone who has ever helped a friend move across town knows that figuring out how to load a truck can be the difference between making two or three trips. How you load a truck can also affect your ability to unload it quickly.
A loading strategy is even more important to a professional trucking company. If you maximize the space in your truck, you can carry more products. Sometimes, you can share space with other small trucking companies.
The route you take from one place to another can affect the cost of a trip. There are many things to consider besides distance. Different states have different fuel taxes and fees for truck drivers.
If all this sounds rather complex, it is. You have a business to run, and that is a full-time job. You will need freight planning services to help you get your products from one place to another.
What a Freight Planning Company Will Do
When you open a business, it may seem like you will make the most money by getting as many companies to patronize your business as possible. This is not always true in the trucking industry.
You may not make as much money as you should if your truck is not full when you travel across the country.
A freight planner will make sure every load you take offers maximum profitability. They will measure the amount of room in your trucks and look at the size of each package in each client’s load.
They will decide which loads will go in which trucks based on available space and where the truck is going. They will also plan the order in which the shipments are loaded so your drivers can load and unload shipments as quickly as possible.
This can save you hours.
What Kind of Cargo Are You Carrying
You already know that your clients will expect you to have a certain amount of insurance. The amount of liability insurance the Federal Motor Carriers Safety Administration will expect you to carry will depend upon the type of cargo you are transporting.
For example, if you’re carrying dry food products, you will have to have more insurance than if you’re carrying novelties made of cardboard. If you’re carrying hazardous materials, you will need more insurance than carrying dry food products.
A freight planner will make sure the insurance you have on each truck will cover all of the products that you have in that truck.
Where is the Truck Going
A freight planner will make sure that everything on one truck is going to the same region of the country. They will ensure you never have a deadhead truck driving back to your facility and wasting money all along the way.
Your driver will always pick up and drop off products in both directions.
Route Planning
Technically, a freight planner and a route planner are two different jobs.
However, it’s best to find a freight planning company that also offers route planning.
If you do your homework, you should be able to find a freight planner that also handles compliance and insurance. If you can do business with a company that offers more than one service, you will save time and money.
A route planner will find you the most cost-effective routes. This is done by figuring out the mileage between your office and each delivery point, as well as the taxes and other fees in each state.
The most cost-effective trip may be longer than the shortest trip. For example, if you’re traveling from Washington State to California, the shortest way to get there is to drive through Oregon.
However, you may consider taking a different route because Oregon is the most expensive state to drive through. A route planner will know exactly how much it will cost to drive through each state.
A freight strategy is one of the hardest parts of running a trucking company. If you hire a freight planner with many years of experience, your trips will be profitable, and your cargo will arrive on time.