Rates

TIPS TO MINIMIZE SHIPPING COSTS  
 
To keep shipping costs down here are a few tips: 
  
1.  Try to schedule your shipments earlier in the week.
Thursdays and especially Fridays for pickup tend to be more difficult to arrange. If the truck doesn't show for your Friday p/u, can you wait till Monday? 
 
Being flexible on p/u and delivery dates will lower your costs. Offering longer p/u and delivery hours may also help. 
 
2.  LTL's and partial shipments (especially machinery and specialized items) may cost less using an LTL carrier, however, if you want to ensure a safe, damage-free arrival to your customer and your item could easily be damaged, it is a better option to put it on a stepdeck or flatbed. Once it's loaded and secured onto one of these trailers 99% of the time it's not going to be moved again until it's delivered--unlike an LTL carrier, which will usually have at least one cross dock transfer onto another truck. The more times it's unloaded, stored on a dock, and reloaded onto another truck, the more chances it has of getting damaged. 
 
3.  Have accurate information on your shipments so the trucker won't be surprised when he shows up at your dock. Information like weight, pc. count, size (L x W x H) and whether or not it's crated (plywood or stick crate), palletized, or shrink-wrapped. 
  
4.  Always band loose pieces onto a pallet with either plastic strapping for lighter pieces, or steel strapping for heavier items. 
 
5.  Find out if your customer has a dock and whether or not he has the room for a tractor trailer to get into his dock. Otherwise it will have to be unloaded onto a straight truck (or rollback for machinery) and redelivered, incurring extra charges.  
 
6.  If a shipment is a HOT RUSH, expedited, emergency, ASAP, etc. it is going to cost a premium. When the alternative is a plant shutdown or losing a customer, the expedited freight costs are not going to matter down the road. 
 
7.  Avoid, if at all possible, scheduling an important pickup a day or two before a holiday weekend.  Most drivers are trying to get home.  This makes it difficult to find trucks to match on your load. 
 
If you want reliable, professional service you need to be prepared to spend more to get it. If it doesn't matter to you that trucks may not show up on time, or show up at all, deliver late, etc. then you can afford to hunt for the best price if price is all that matters.  A trucker assigned to a lower rated load may drop it if he finds another higher paying load. 
 
 
MACHINERY 
For machinery or odd shipments you will need the dimensions, also known as the "dims" (Length, Width and Height--in that order), the weight and whether or not it needs to be tarped. 

For used machinery be sure the machines have been purged of all chemicals, fuel or hydraulic fluids that may leak out onto the deck of the trailer. This will not only cause a safety hazard or damage the trailer but if the truck is stopped for an inspection at a truck scale by a DOT officer, the truck will be detained where it is, a hazmat team will be called out resulting in big fines and environmental cleanup fees, not to mention payment for all fire departments and police involved. There's virtually no limit to what they can charge on these. And, your shipment will be held up for who knows how long. 
 
 
OVER-DIMENSIONAL 
Anytime an item or load exceeds 102" wide at its widest point, it becomes a WIDE LOAD and will cost more. 
Legal height, without permits, is 13' 6, from the ground up to the highest point of the load.
If it exceeds much more than 8' tall it will not go on a flatbed (F) and needs a stepdeck (SD). 
 
If it is more than 10' or so tall it will need a lowboy (LB), double drop (DD) or removeable gooseneck (RGN). 

If the combined height from the ground to the highest point of your item exceeds 13' 6" it then requires special permits and routing to avoid hitting overpasses and power lines. If it can be laid down on the deck of the trailer it would be better to get wide load permits than over height permits, which are much more expensive. 
 
CRANES, RIGGERS, INSTALL CREWS, ETC. 
The more time critical your shipments are in reference to coordinating with crane appointments, riggers, install crews or unloading crews, the more it is going to cost, especially on the delivery end. 
 
DRIVER LOAD/UNLOAD OR DRIVER ASSIST 
If you want the driver to assist in loading or unloading assume you will be charged an extra $50-$100 minimum, depending on what's involved. 

For a driver to be expected to load a trailer (usually this is with a pallet jack, forklift or even hand load in the case of van trailers) you may see an extra $100-$250 or more depending on the circumstances.  
 
DETENTION 
The detention begins if a truck is held up being loaded/unloaded beyond 2 hours total time. In expedited or HOT RUSH loads it typically begins after the first hour.  Rates start at about $75 per hour. 
 
EXTRA STOPOFF 
If a truck is re-routed to another destination for delivery, or an extra pickup or stop-off, you can expect to pay for any extra mileage and a stop-off charge for each extra stop.  With the current driver's hours of service rules making it difficult to adjust to an unexpected schedule change, additional stop-off charges often start at $75 or $100.  They increase in monetary value the more stops there are on a run. An example would be $75 - $100 for the first two stops, $150 for the following two and $250 per stop for each stop thereafter. 

LAYOVER 
If a driver is forced to layover unexpectedly to load or unload he should be compensated for his time of no productivity and lost wages. The typical cost is anywhere from $250-$450. On specialized equipment it is much more. Just like a crane who is charging $1000 an hour or so waiting on a truck who didn't show up--someone has to pay.