The Logistics of Canadian Truck Delivery

It is not enough to simply manufacture finished goods in today’s industrialized world. While cars, foodstuffs, electronics, furniture, and more are built all across North America, there must also be a sufficient transportation infrastructure for it all, and across North America, warehouse and carrier brands and companies are ready to transport and store all sorts of items, every day of the year. Food and beverage logistics or tracking shipments of pharmaceuticals or industrial goods can be made easy and practical with the use of wheels logistics tracking on the Internet. Online, carriers, shippers, and recipients can all track where trucks are going across Canada with wheels logistics tracking, and commercial logistics can be kept neat and organized to minimize problems of delivery and storage. Although many airplanes and trains are used for delivering larger amounts of freight at a time across North America, trucks are often the primary method of delivering cargo in Canada and the United States (and between both nations), so wheels logistics tracking can go a long way to managing freight deliveries today.

Canadian Trucking Today

There are some statistics about the Canadian trucking industry today that show just how powerful, and important, these carriers are, and wheels logistics tracking can help managers and buyers keep up on where deliveries are going or when they’ve been dropped off at a warehouse. Back in 2012, for example, statistics showed that around 90% of all consumer products and foodstuffs alike were shipped across Canada in trucks, and about two-thirds (by value) by trade to the United States (which stands as Canada’s single biggest trading partner). This impressive trucking industry is set to grow in the future, too; over the course of the next decade, nearly $2 billion may be spent by the Trade and Transportation Corridors Initiative to make Canadian transportation even more efficient and effective in the years to come. Today, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, this industry has a value of $65 billion and employs some 400,000 people, including 260,000 drivers.

What is being transported across Canada in all these trucks? As of now, the food and beverage processing industry ranks as the second biggest manufacturing industry in Canada in terms of value of production. As of 2014, for a recent example, the value of this industry stood at $105.5 billion, and this industry accounts for 17% of all manufacturing shipments in Canada and 2% of the national GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Canadian factories also turn out finished goods such as home appliances and tools, as well as furniture and electronics, and all these have to be transported somewhere. Some cargo, such as natural gas or dry ice or even liquid nitrogen, are considered hazardous materials, and trucks all across North America sometimes deal with such cargo. This calls for truck and dock crews with certain qualifications and training to handle these materials, and these crews will also have the right gear such as gloves, body suits, or even respirators. A truck carrying liquid nitrogen or natural gas canisters will be labeled to warn others of the hazardous contents.

Shipment Methods

Canadian trucks may sometimes deliver cargo for just one shipper, often larger retailers who will have large enough shipments so that an entire semi truck is needed. But what about smaller retailers who want more limited cargo loads delivered? Wheels logistics tracking can be used to track small shipments as well as large ones, and these tracking methods will have to be in good working order when a truck is delivering for multiple shippers. A single small shipper is wasting a lot of money by paying for a huge semi truck alone; rather, a number of small shippers can share a single truck with all their cargo combined in the storage bay, and this is known as “less than truckload”, or LTL shipping. In this way, the shippers save money by only paying for the space that their cargo is using, and the truck is not losing efficiency by hauling only a small amount of cargo at a time. Cargo can be held down with straps if need be, or even on palettes with plastic wrap or straps to keep items from falling over during LTL shipping.