Logistics
What your dock tells us before we arrive
Request pricing
Everything marked with a star is required. The rest helps us quote faster.
A 53' trailer sent to a site it cannot turn in costs about $340 and loses a slot somebody else wanted. We would rather ask six awkward questions than make that mistake.
Collections almost never fail because of the pallets. They fail because of the approach, the equipment, the hours or the ground. All four are knowable in advance and almost none of them appear in a first enquiry.
The six questions
- Can a 53' trailer enter, turn and exit without reversing onto a public road? If not, we send a 48' or a box truck. Either is fine; discovering it on arrival is not.
- Dock leveller, ramp, or ground level? Ground-level loading needs a flatbed or a moffett. A dry van at ground level is unusable.
- Do you have a forklift and an operator available, and for how long? “We have a forklift” and “we have a forklift driver at 10 AM on Thursday” are different answers.
- What are the real dock hours, including any closed lunch period and the unofficial cut-off forty minutes before the shift ends?
- Is there a site induction, a PPE requirement or a gate pass, and how far in advance is it needed? Some sites need 48 hours.
- What is the ground like? Gravel, unsealed yard, a slope, or a compound that has not been ploughed since the storm.
What each one changes
| Constraint | Equipment | Effect on the collection |
|---|---|---|
| Full dock, forklift, 53' access | 53' dry van | Best rate; largest load |
| Ground level, forklift on site | 48' flatbed | Slightly smaller load |
| Ground level, no forklift | Moffett flatbed | Smaller load, higher cost |
| Tight yard, no turning circle | Box truck, multiple trips | Highest cost per unit |
| Continuous generation | Drop trailer | Lowest friction of all |
| Soft or unsealed ground | Hard-standing staging | We may ask you to move the stack |
The things people forget to mention
- A locked gate with a code nobody at the dock knows.
- A shared yard where another tenant's trailers block the approach at specific times.
- Low clearance — a canopy, a bridge on the approach road, an overhead pipe rack.
- Weight limits on a private road or a bridge.
- An access agreement with a landlord that requires notice.
- Snow. A yard that has not been ploughed is not a yard we can turn in.
What good looks like
The best first email we ever received, more or less verbatim: “About 900 mixed 48x40, maybe 60% sound. 80022. Dock high, leveller, we have a forklift and a driver 6:30–14:00 Mon–Thu. 53' can turn in the yard, entry off the north side. No induction, just report to the scale house. Photo attached.”
That took the customer ninety seconds and it meant we quoted, scheduled and collected inside four working days with no follow-up questions at all. It is still the template we show new dispatchers.