Although the basic principle of trucking is the same across the industry in that each company is tasked with transporting items from point A to point B that is often where the similarity ends when it comes to defining what each trucking company does.
There are a number of key differences that tend to define a trucking business and where they position themselves in the market.
Here is a look at some of those fundamental aspects in order to be above to decide which one is the right fit for your particular needs.
Providing logistical support
A popular option is a classification of trucking known as for-hire truckload carriers within the industry.
As the description suggests, this involves a scenario where the trucking business aims to generate revenue by making it available to haul other company’s freight.
The way they do this would be to agree to contract out their truck and trailer together with a driver so that the client can arrange to transport their items to another destination without the fixed cost of maintaining a fleet of vehicles themselves or employing drivers.
Some trucking companies have managed to build a sizeable business with a large fleet of trucks and drivers by agreeing on regular contracts with major suppliers.
Greater control of the supply chain
Some manufacturing companies prefer to have a greater level of control over the supply chain and don’t want to rely on a third-party trucking company to support this aspect of their business.
Taking this approach means building and maintaining a private fleet of trucks that are used exclusively in order to support the manufacturing business.
From a driver’s perspective, a potential issue with this type of work is the fact that you are reliant on the business generating sufficient orders to be able to keep the truckers employed whereas a for-hire driver has potentially more work opportunities to choose from.
Satisfying a gap in the market
The other key difference to talk about is the Less Than Truckload Carriers (known as LTL in the industry).
A prime example of what this means is when consumer products are too large or heavy to be sent via the standard mail service an LTL option is what is required to make the delivery happen.
This trucking option often means that each truck will be transporting multiple items to a range of different addresses with each load that they have.
Drivers who work on this basis will need to be prepared to drive to multiple destinations in order to fulfill their delivery schedule, which is a different scenario in comparison to the two previous options when the delivery schedule often only involves one drop location.
As you can see from these three prime examples there are specific differences between trucking companies and how they operate their vehicles.
Having an understanding of these key differences will help you to decide which service suits your needs as a business and which driving tasks you prefer if you are someone looking to forge a career in the trucking industry.
