{"id":67679,"date":"2013-09-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lantechweb.wpengine.com\/blog\/ltl-freight-carriers-have-edge-over-shippers\/"},"modified":"2020-12-28T15:30:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T20:30:22","slug":"ltl-freight-carriers-have-edge-over-shippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lantech.com\/ltl-freight-carriers-have-edge-over-shippers\/","title":{"rendered":"LTL Freight Carriers Have Edge Over Shippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\"LTL,Chances are, almost every less-than-truckload pallet you ship will be weighed.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s done for a good reason \u2013 money.\u00a0 But only recently have carriers made this progression.<\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, carriers found it impractical to weigh every load. Lifting each and every pallet off a truck and placing it on a platform scale was too time consuming. So only 30 percent of loads were weighed. As a consequence, carriers lost money when they accepted shippers\u2019 bills of lading without verifying their accuracy. In turn, shippers rarely received penalites for discrepancies.<\/p>\n

Times have changed.<\/p>\n

Load cell technology enables carriers to create a new revenue stream that hadn\u2019t been possible before. Scale manufacturers invented fork lift scales in the late 1990s. This invention eliminates time-consuming steps that were once required to move a pallet to a platform scale.<\/p>\n

Federal legislation requires any company charging by the pound to use certified legal-for-trade scales for accuracy. This certification guarantees that weight measured by carriers can\u2019t be contested by shippers that aren\u2019t using equally precise scales. Not to mention, most certified-for-trade scales pay for themselves in three months.<\/p>\n

When a mismatch is discovered, carriers charge shippers the weight difference and reweigh charges \u2013 from $15 to $25 \u2013 if they\u2019re aren\u2019t negotiated in agreed upon contracts.<\/p>\n

Now that carriers have adapted to new technology, they\u2019ve recovered their losses experienced during the recession and the years before using fork lifts.<\/p>\n

LTL freight carriers are cashing in annually on $1 billion in fines alone, or 3 percent, of the $32 billion industry.<\/p>\n

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