At Freight Motion, we have customers who discuss various transportation issues they had in the past. We would like to share one here to raise awareness of underlying issues, market trends, and possible solutions.
With Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma affecting a large portion of the country this season, we have noticed an increase in missed pickups. In today’s post, we would like to address some common reasons for missed pickups.
Obviously, the big reason lately for missed pickups has been weather related issues. At a certain point, determined by the driver or dispatcher, weather conditions will be determined unsafe. This is for driver safety, your freight’s safety, and the safety of others. If the weather is really bad, it’s probably better off waiting a day or two for the weather to clear. Insisting freight go out may only lead to future issues like dealing with possible damage.
Another reason for a missed pickup is the stop(s) before you gave the driver more freight than expected or the pallet sizes were larger than expected. For example, you have four pallets to ship and are stop number nine. At stop number three, instead of giving the driver one pallet, they gave him five pallets. At stops 4 through 8, they also give more pallets than expected. Now, there is little to no room for your pallets. Unfortunately, most LTL carrier’s policy is to take the unexpected pallets and re-schedule the other pickups for a later date.
Lastly, an early close time and scheduling a pickup late in the day are other causes for missed pickups. LTL carriers deliver in the morning and pick up in the afternoon (this is why they almost never pickup before noon). They deliver in the morning so they can empty their trucks and fill them with afternoon pickups.
There are many other reasons for a missed pickup, but these are some of the most common. Many factors go into it, which is why it is difficult for carriers to predict ETA’s.
Have you ever had a pickup missed? What were some of the reasons?
