RoadLINX Inc Third Party Logistics Keeps Haulage Trucking | Page 8

HANDLING SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
Despite the huge increase in overseas transported goods due to the recent ecommerce phenomenon and the
globalization of world trade supply chains there is still a huge need for regional and international trucking services.
In particular trucking companies still service the container ships coming into port and transport their goods to the
final regional destination. However, due to the vast variety of goods being shipped overseas this often requires
specialist modes of transport and equipment to efficiently load and unload these ocean going container ships.
Shipping containers revolutionized global trade by making it highly efficient to load goods onto ships at the
dockside in order to conserve space and reduce loading times. So efficient has the loading and unloading process
become is it only requires one crane to load an entire container ship. However that also means that the haulage
company must have flatbed trailers as the shipping container is lifted onto or off the trailer.Therefore it is important
to plan ahead to recognize if the shipment that is to be collected from the docks is in a container or on traditional
pallets. This is because containers just like trucks are offered in Less than Full Container (LFC) or in Full Container
(FC) modes to accommodate shipments of any size. Making sure that transportation is planned and scheduled
efficiently and cost effectively is the job of logistics and transportation functions within a company. However as
these operations require time and a great deal of knowledge and skill they tend to be cost centres that eat into
profits. As a result many companies try to offload these functions to a third party logistics company.