Most of the Canadian transportation industry requires the use of truck hauled freight services at one point of the supply chain or another. May the goods be in the form of raw material like corn or iron ore to be moved from an agricultural farm or a mining site to an industrial unit or heavy machinery and finished consumer goods being sent to the end user; trucks play a big part in keeping the industry running throughout the Canadian territories and the 42 US states.
The following are some of the medium and light transport equipment types in use in Canada and the US today. Medium and light transportation trucks carry lighter loads and are useful to utilize the 900,000 KM of (non-highway) road network that connects towns, farms, mines ports (land, sea or air) and industrial units all over the country.
Light and Medium Trucking equipment in use by Canadian trucking and freight forwarding service providers:
Pickup trucks
A full size pickup truck is used for short and medium distance hauls for weights up to 6000lb's depending upon the design and make of the pickup truck (usually anywhere from 250 KGs upwards) and are often called 'half-tonners, three quarter-tonners, one-tonners and one half-tonners'. They usually have a cargo hold, or 'bed', measuring at least 4X8 ft.
Multi-stop Trucks
Multi-stop trucks are also known as walk-in delivery trucks, and typically carry light to medium weight loads. These are used to make local deliveries to businesses and residences and most commonly carry dairy products.
Van or Box truck and bottlers
A van or box truck is used to deliver goods weighing up to a few tonnes over medium distances. These are cube shaped vans with a spacious hold (also called cube vans), and are of the type often used by courier services like FedEx. Bottlers are most commonly noticed n the roads due to their roll-up sides and these carry bottles packed in crates (plastic or glass), such as soda or milk bottles etc.
Medium standard truck (or simply, truck)
These are medium standard delivery trucks most commonly used to carry freight over long distances and are ideal for the transportation of raw material and machinery such as vans or cars. Medium trucks come in a variety or makes and sizes and in Canada, are found to carry loads between 15,000 to 25,000 Lbs and typically have a length of 9, 12-16 and sometimes up to 20 feet.
Flatbed trucks
Flatbed trucks are freight trucks that consist of a drivers cab and a wheeled, flat-level trailing platform without any sides (and therefore no roof) which can carry heavy loads of a wide variety such as standard shipping containers, machinery and irregular shaped objects that require space (the military uses these to carry artillery pieces and tanks). Flatbed trucks typically two a trailer or semitrailer and can carry standard shipping containers of 20', 20' high-cube and 53' types (usually carrying up to 48,000 Lbs or more). Flatbed trucks, according to the use and the cargo load attached, are also often classified as heavy trucks.
References:
Wikipedia[dot]com
www[dot]fastfreightquotes[dot]com/freight-services/freightequipmenttypes.php
About Author:
Allen is a staff writer for Allegro Freight Services. Allegro Freight, a shipping company focusing in ocean freight, air freight and trucking freight with worldwide presence in many countries.
