Road Freight
Groupage Freight
Groupage moves a consignment through a consolidation network rather than directly. LogisticID is preparing groupage as a distinct service and does not arrange it today.
- Capability status
- Planned — not offered yet
- Page purpose
- Explanation, not an offer
- Available service
- European road freight
Capability boundary
Groupage freight is not yet available from LogisticID.
This page explains how the capability works and how its coordination would need to be structured. LogisticID currently arranges European road freight through third-party carriers. Nothing here is an offer, and no booking can be placed for it today.
Groupage describes the network, LTL describes the consignment
These two terms are used interchangeably and answer different questions. Part load — LTL — is a statement about the consignment: it does not fill a vehicle. Groupage is a statement about how it travels: through a scheduled consolidation network, collected into a hub, sorted with other consignments, moved on a trunk leg, and broken down for delivery at the far end.
A part load can travel without a network, on a vehicle that happens to be carrying two or three consignments over the same route. A groupage consignment travels because a network runs whether or not any particular consignment exists.
The distinction is worth keeping because it predicts different things. Ask 'is it a part load' and you learn about price. Ask 'is it groupage' and you learn how many times the goods will be handled and what determines the delivery day.
What the network does to the schedule
In a groupage flow the departure is set by the network's timetable rather than by when the goods are ready. A consignment ready an hour after a trunk departure waits for the next one, and the wait is a property of the schedule rather than of the shipment.
This is why groupage transit is best understood as a sequence of scheduled steps rather than a driving time. The distance between two cities may be a day; the transit through a network between the same two cities is however long the collection, sort, trunk and delivery steps take when laid end to end.
It also means a groupage schedule is relatively insensitive to consignment size and quite sensitive to readiness. Missing a cut-off costs a whole cycle.
Handling count is the packaging requirement
A direct movement handles goods twice. A groupage movement handles them at each hub as well, and each handling is a lift, a placement and possibly a re-stack alongside consignments chosen by the network rather than by the shipper.
So packaging for groupage is packaging for handling, not for the road. Loads must be stable when moved, able to take a neighbour's weight if they are stackable, labelled so that a person who has never seen the consignment can route it correctly, and free of overhang that stops them being placed in a standard footprint.
A pallet that would travel a direct movement without complaint can fail in a network for reasons that have nothing to do with the distance.
Where it fits
When this is the right choice.
- The consignment is well below a vehicle load and the goods are packaged for repeated handling.
- The delivery requirement has enough tolerance to absorb a scheduled network's cycle.
- Movements repeat between the same regions often enough to benefit from a running schedule.
Where it does not
When something else suits better
- The goods are fragile, unstackable, or awkward enough that handling is the main risk.
- The delivery date is firm and missing a cut-off would be costly, where a direct movement is more predictable.
- The consignment is large enough that a dedicated vehicle costs little more.
- It is needed now: groupage is not a service LogisticID arranges today.
Preparing a request
What to have ready.
- Number of handling units, with dimensions and gross weight for each.
- Whether units are stackable, and if so what weight they can carry on top.
- How the goods are labelled, and whether labels survive handling.
- The date and time goods are genuinely loadable, against the network's cut-off rather than the working day.
- Whether either site has restrictions on the vehicle a network would normally use.
Available today
Use the service LogisticID can actually arrange now.
This capability is not bookable. European road freight remains the current service, arranged through independent carriers.
European road freight