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More often than not, the nature of your goods determines the transport method you choose to ship them. 

Perishable foods? Forget the longer transit times of container shipping.

Expensive items that need extra protection? Consider air freight!

Hazardous materials? Find out the best practice in our blog on the topic. 

We’ve covered air and sea freight in a previous blog. Road transport is another often overlooked option for moving goods around, and a flexible one at that. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the pros and cons of road freight to find out if it’s the right mode of transport for your goods. 

 

What Do We Mean By Road Freight?

Road freight is the transportation of cargo using vans or lorries. 

Sometimes road freight takes up only part of the whole journey. Shipments that reach their destination country via other modes of transport, like container vessels, might continue to their final destination in a vehicle. 

The Main Benefits

Using wheels to get your goods where they need to be offers many advantages…

So Many Roads!

Perhaps the largest advantage road freight offers is the ability to access anywhere from middle-of-nowhere rural locations to large corporate estates. This is particularly useful for businesses in remote locations. 

Flexibility 

Unlike sea or air freight, problems that arise when transporting goods by road can usually be solved by a simple re-route or reschedule. Road freight companies can therefore be far more flexible in their shipments and react to issues extremely efficiently.

Trackability

Being kept in the loop of where your cargo currently is and how long it’ll take to reach its destination is desirable when it comes to shipping, from both the buyer’s and seller’s perspectives.

Shipping on wheels gives you the option to track your packages in real time.

 

It’s Not All Good

Where there are advantages, there are also drawbacks.

Slower Than Other Modes

Delays are the enemy of the shipping world. Unfortunately, traffic jams, accidents, speed limits and bad roads mean that your shipment is likely to take longer than expected to arrive at its destination. 

And it’s not as simple as the truck simply speeding up to account for lost time, either. The physics of a packed-full truck speeding down the motorway has to be kept in check to avoid weight imbalances and accidents. 

Coastlines

The coast is as far as a road freight truck can take its cargo, it’s as simple as that! To ship internationally, other modes of transport might be necessary, and it may work out more cost-effective to use one method rather than load and unload across multiple vessels.

Potential Damage

Particularly over long journeys, goods are at risk of being damaged within the vehicle they’re travelling in. Road freight also has the highest accident rate.

Load Capacity Restrictions

Road freight trucks are far more limited in capacity than planes, trains and ships, making it pretty expensive to ship a large number of goods.

Is Road Freight Cost-Effective?

The jury’s out on this one. Some of the influences affecting the cost of road freight include:

  • Weather. Storms and icy roads, for example, can cause massive delays, and time is money.
  • Fuel price. The constant flux of the cost of fuel makes the price of freight unstable at best.
  • Length of journey. Long-road hauls can be expensive.
  • Road conditions. Poor quality roads can mean rocky driving conditions, with your cargo bumping around in the back. Damaged goods = insurance claims + repeat shipments + time and money down the drain.

Our expert advice? Road freight can be good value for money, but make sure to re-evaluate it often to make sure it’ll still work well for your profit margins.

Road Freight Could Make Sense

If you’re shipping across a continent, or through land-locked countries, road freight could be the perfect answer.

Groceries, dry goods and retail products are also commonly shipped via truck, and extensive road networks mean that door-to-door service is easy to execute. Some companies love that personal feel; an HGV branded with your business name makes for effective advertisement after all!

But, with fuel resources dwindling and the nature of powering vehicles firmly under scrutiny, transporting goods by road isn’t as cheap as it used to be.

Still not sure if road freight will work for you? Call the Millennium team today for our expert advice.

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