Loading metres, and why space is the unit

A road trailer has a fixed deck length, a fixed width and a legal weight limit. On most general freight the weight limit is reached rarely and the floor runs out first — so what a carrier is really selling is a length of deck, and that is what a part load is priced against.

A loading metre is one metre of that deck across its full width. A consignment that occupies half the deck's length costs roughly half the vehicle, regardless of how tall it is or how little it weighs.

Goods that can be stacked release the floor beneath them for another consignment. Goods that cannot occupy their footprint all the way to the roof whether or not they use it.

This is why two consignments of identical weight and volume can be priced very differently, and why 'do not stack' is a genuinely expensive instruction rather than a precaution. Where it is necessary it is necessary; where it has been applied out of habit, it is worth revisiting.

Dense cargo reverses the picture. Metals, stone, liquids, machinery and building materials can reach the vehicle's legal weight limit while a substantial part of the deck is still empty, and at that point the carrier cannot sell the remaining space to anybody.

A quotation for dense goods therefore has to be based on the actual weight, and an under-declared weight is not a small error — it produces a vehicle that is either illegal or has to be partly reloaded.

Overhang beyond the pallet footprint, unstable stacking that has to be separated, protruding parts, and loads that cannot be placed against others all consume space that is not obvious from the dimensions of the goods themselves.

The practical consequence is that presentation is a cost lever a shipper controls directly. Consolidating onto fewer pallets, shrink-wrapping properly, and keeping within the footprint routinely change what a consignment occupies, and therefore what it costs.

The useful description of a part load is the number of handling units, the footprint and height of each, the gross weight, and whether they can be stacked. With those four things a rate can be quoted; without them it cannot, and any figure offered is a guess that will be revised when the vehicle arrives.

Different vehicles and equipment types have different deck configurations. Rather than publishing figures that vary by unit and would date, the practical route is to describe the consignment and let the equipment be chosen against it — the equipment pages on this site explain what each type suits.