Low-Cost Full Truckload LTL Transportation Services

Low Cost of Full Truckload and Less-Than-Truckload Transportation

In the development of modern logistics industry, full truckload and less-than-truckload transportation are two common modes of transportation. With the rapid development of e-commerce and the increasing demand for timeliness of logistics services from consumers, how to reduce transportation costs has become a focus of attention for enterprises. This article will explore the cost differences between full truckload and less-than-truckload transportation based on practical cases and analyze the reasons behind them.

In recent years, China's express logistics industry has shown a trend of rapid growth. Statistics show that in the first half of 2025, the national express delivery volume exceeded 60 billion pieces, an increase of about 15% year-on-year. This data not only reflects the growing demand for efficient distribution services in the market, but also poses higher challenges to logistics enterprises. In the face of such a huge market demand, choosing the right mode of transportation is particularly important.

First, let's look at full truckload transportation. As the name suggests, full truckload refers to the one-time shipment carried out when a vehicle is fully loaded with goods. This mode is usually suitable for large-scale bulk cargo transportation scenarios, such as large supermarkets delivering goods to various branches, and e-commerce platforms concentrating shipments. Due to the vehicle running at full capacity, the unit weight transportation cost is relatively low. For example, in the supply chain system of a well-known e-commerce company, when the order volume reaches a certain scale, full truckload transportation will be used to transport goods directly from the warehouse to the destination city. This method can effectively reduce intermediate links, shorten transportation time, improve efficiency, and reduce overall operating costs.

However, full truckload transportation is not suitable for all situations. For enterprises with dispersed orders and smaller single shipment volumes, they need to rely on another form of less-than-truckload transportation. Less-than-truckload refers to the process of transporting goods from multiple customers on the same vehicle. Although this method seems flexible and convenient, it generates extra time costs and management fees during the operation process due to the possible involvement of multiple batches of different customers' goods allocation per trip. According to a third-party logistics company, in one of their less-than-truckload transportation tasks, they need to handle an average of about 30 customers' goods each time, which undoubtedly increases scheduling difficulties.

So why are the costs of less-than-truckload transportation higher than those of full truckload? The main reason lies in the issue of resource utilization. When a truck carries only part of the goods, the remaining space cannot be fully utilized, which leads to a series of chain reactions such as increased fuel consumption and greater driver workload. To ensure service quality, companies need to invest more human and material resources in cargo sorting, packaging, and tracking management. By comparison, full truckload transportation can maximize vehicle performance and avoid wasting valuable space resources.

Of course, with technological progress and management model innovation, some new solutions aimed at optimizing the less-than-truckload transportation process have emerged in the market. For example, through big data analysis to predict future cargo flow directions and plan routes in advance; or use intelligent algorithms to dynamically adjust vehicle loading ratios to achieve reasonable resource allocation. These measures have alleviated some of the pain points in traditional less-than-truckload transportation to a certain extent, making the mode more economical and practical.

In summary, full truckload and less-than-truckload transportation each have their advantages and disadvantages. Enterprises should weigh the pros and cons based on their own actual situations when choosing. For large-scale bulk cargo transportation that pursues low cost and high efficiency, full truckload is undoubtedly the best option; while for small and medium-sized enterprises with frequent demand fluctuations and complex order structures, they might as well try to use modern information technology means to improve existing less-than-truckload transportation conditions. Only in this way can they stand firm in fierce market competition.