The UK haulage business is competitive, and nowhere is this seen more than in the area of returnloads.

A Refresher Course

Just in case you’ve been living a very sheltered life during your time in the business, returnloads are all about trying to make a living. The basic idea is that it’s pretty much commercial suicide to have your trucks continually running around empty over long distances.

People hauling or shipping goods have experienced this problem since the beginning of history and probably before. No doubt the ancient Romans used to sweat about whether or not their galleys taking goods overseas would find a suitable return load just as much as we do today. This need can lead to some interesting and sometimes comical situations!

The Beggar

Of course, most people in the business have an extensive professional contact network and seek to employ this to secure that precious return load. Yet quite a few of us have experienced the need to go ‘cap in hand’ begging for the return load when something’s gone wrong with our normal plans and arrangements. In such situations, many of us know the feeling of grovelling to people to give us returnloads, and phoning around frantically asking the unlikeliest of people if they’ve a load to ‘come back’.

Geography Isn’t Important

Then there’s the person that offers returnloads but who unfortunately has only the most tenuous hold on reality and no grasp at all of geography. If you’ve ever dealt with someone confirming that they’ve found you a return load from “Milan to London”, then the day before collection give you a loading address actually in Naples (about 530 miles south of Milan), then you’ll know how infuriating such situations can be.

Ungrouped Groupage

Then there are the infamous groupage returnloads; you’re promised a full load of groupage only to find that the load isn’t quite as grouped as you’d been told and in fact has to be picked up from several locations scattered over a wide area.Closely linked to that are those groupage loads inbound from the continent where it’s described as a single tip in say London but in reality has several, including one in Newcastle. Cue much teeth-grinding and frantic price re-negotiations!

What a Shock!

Another great experience that’s not exactly uncommon in the world of returnloads is where the customer hasn’t listened to a word you’ve said about the nature of your vehicle. So your ordinary 12-metre tilt trailer gets taken to collect that full load for return only to find that the agricultural machine you expected is, in fact, a huge 5m tall harvester that needs a low-loader and a ‘convoi exceptionnel’ transit.

A variation on this is when a driver calls from overseas in a panic to say that ‘they’ are trying to load cartons of fresh highly perishable foodstuffs onto your trailer, in spite of his and then your protestations that a refrigerated vehicle is necessary. It’s doubly odd given the fact you had been told the cargo was, in fact, shoes!

Send Three-and-Four-Pence

Just a final light-hearted comment about returnloads, accents and Chinese whispers. You may think that you’ve just secured your return load and all’s well – right up until you see the final delivery address come through.

Then the irate phone call results in:

“You wanted a load to Cheshunt? I thought you said Chester!”

Can’t happen in this day and age? Don’t believe it!

Technology Makes a Difference

Many a shipping or traffic clerk has had to cut their teeth on trying to manage these little dramas with returnloads. Once they’ve been sorted out, they usually result in a laugh and few fond stories to tell. Of course, these days technology is hopefully increasingly reducing the scope for misunderstandings – whether hilarious or not.

It’s now possible to look at consolidated lists of returnloads and return load suppliers all online with freight exchanges. Looks like the days of confusion with returnloads are now consigned to history.

Author Bio: Norman Dulwich is a Correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the leading online trade network for the road transport industry across the UK and Europe. It provides services for haulage companies to buy and sell returnloads , road transport and freight exchange in the domestic and international markets.

Category: Automotive
Keywords: returnloads