Understanding all of the shipping options available to your business helps you make the most of your resources. Ultimately, you can more efficiently move your cargo to its destination.
There are a few distinct types of trucking to consider. Each has its own positives and negatives when it comes to cost, handling of freight, timelines, resources needed, and more.
Let’s start by making it clear exactly what no touch freight is. Then, we’ll look at related practices, such as drop and hook trucking, and live load trucking.
No Touch Freight: Meaning and Examples
For no touch freight, the definition is simple. The driver isn’t required or expected to unload or otherwise handle the load they’re hauling. Instead, they’re responsible for bringing the semi-trailer to its intended destination. Trucking companies with no touch freight focus on the driving aspect, leaving the loading and unloading to the recipients.
This process is attractive to truck drivers. Many of them want to avoid unloading the freight themselves following a long and taxing delivery. It’s common for them to seek out these trucking jobs.
Kopf Logistics Group explains truck drivers enjoy the downtime that comes with working for no touch freight trucking companies. Additionally, drivers avoid the liability that comes with loading and unloading potentially valuable cargo in a potentially unfamiliar and busy area.
Working with a no touch freight company can make sense for your business, too. If you have a complex or very large warehouse, it’s often more practical for knowledgeable staff to handle incoming loads. If a load includes hazardous material, staff with specific certifications may be needed for unloading.
Do Truck Drivers Unload Their Trailers?
Sometimes, truck drivers are responsible for unloading the trailer that they deliver to a recipient. It’s clear that no touch freight focuses on operating a truck exclusively. However, other types of work can require the driver to unload their freight on a loading dock.
Drivers may work with third parties, called lumpers, to unload for them in some instances. In others, the driver will put in the work themselves. They may use pallet jacks, forklifts, dock ramps, and other tools to move the load.
Drop and Hook vs. Live Load
A no touch freight job could also be a drop and hook task or a live load. Let’s take a closer look at each of these concepts.
What is Drop and Hook Trucking?
In a drop and hook arrangement, driving jobs focus on dropping off and picking up full trailers.
In this arrangement, a truck driver can arrive at a loading dock with a full trailer or only their cab. In the first case, the driver will drop off the loaded trailer being carried. Then, they hook the kingpin of the new trailer (which is also loaded) and the fifth-wheel hitch on their truck. This is where the name “drop and hook” comes from.
If a driver doesn’t have a load when they arrive, they will simply attach a full trailer. Then, they leave the yard and deliver it to its destination.
What is Live Load Trucking?
Live load trucking requires drivers to wait as an empty trailer is either loaded or unloaded. This means more time at the loading dock. Truck drivers are still paid for this time. However, they aren’t as productive as they could be in a drop and hook arrangement.
Live load trucking offers some important benefits to companies. It can be significantly easier to manage. Businesses don’t need to secure additional space for empty and filled trailers to create space at loading docks.
Similarly, companies don’t need to purchase and maintain a truck to move those trailers. Nor do they need to manage all of the related logistics. Using live loads can also ensure a load that’s sensitive to temperature doesn’t linger too long in the yard.
Drayage Trucking and No Touch Freight
At Iraheta Bros, drayage at the Port of Oakland is our specialty. We’re also seasoned experts at providing intermodal trucking services, that which focuses on moving shipping containers to and from ports and other intermodal facilities across short distances, intrastate within California.
Although it’s not always mentioned in standard definitions, drayage trucking is generally a form of no touch freight. Our drivers, nor any other drayage truckers, are expected to open or interact with the contents of a shipping container.
We offer a broad range of services to support our customers, going far beyond only moving containers. From maintaining the special equipment needed to keep the loads inside food-grade refrigerated and frozen containers to our climate-controlled and secured warehouse, we’re uniquely equipped to help you manage your import and export cargo.
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