Forgive me....what is an LTL truck driver?

Mixed loads, multiple drops, sometimes local. I.e. MN to TX with 11 stops is a ltl load.

 

A good example is FedEx freight, they are LTL in a real sense, they take anything that is less than a truck load and transport it.

I see Triple Crown, USF and a bunch of others do the same thing.

A lot of expediters (FedEx custom crtiical, Panther, Landstar Express) are LTL too when they haul more than just one load.

 

LTL stands for Lost Though Looking. And LTL driver will go around to different locations in the city and pick up or deliver freight that is less then a full load. They then bring the freight back to a central location called a cross dock. There the loads are placed together with other freight going to the same city or area and off the the fully loaded trailer goes. A LTL driver will not drive as many miles and does a lot more backing then an OTR driver. It is a very good way to get a lot of experience quickly.

Just don't work cheap.

 

There's another kind of LTL: OTR, cross-country runs with one or more pickups and any number of deliveries, often in different states. Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVmom8upgCg
The driver--Alicja--is a truly amazing woman. A lot of her clips are about her cross-country LTL trips. She is a pro, a 13-year veteran.

I preferred cross-country LTL and I was fortunate to have many cross-country LTL runs. I loved 'em: sometimes there's no loading dock and you're in downtown Cleveland, having driven from Denver. After Cleveland you go to Rochester, NY, where the dock is tight (to put it mildly) then Boston, when Montreal--both deliveries are on the street. Or a six-drop load from California to Utah, New Mexico, Texas, then Kansas City; two malls, a mom-and-pop upholstery shop [no dock], three huge distribution centers. I had a two-dropper once from Phoenix to Portland, OR: both deliveries were to the same warehouse, but different doors. I got extra stop pay for each door. Anyway, check out Alicja's YT clips and her Trucking Diaries Facebook page.

Sorry. Here's Alicja's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TruckingDiaries

 

There's different forms in a sense from one box up to several pallets but not enough to fill a truck. So multiple customers get part of the truck until it's full. Your typical LTL company everyone thinks about like UPS, Fedex, Central Transport and several others. Since I worked for Central I'll explain their operation. They are basically what you can fit on a pallet operation where as Fed Ex and UPS is usually by the box.

Central has P&D (pick up and delivery) drivers who go around all morning delivering individual pallets. One customer might get multiple pallets or they might get one box on one pallet. In the afternoon the P&D guys go around and pick up pallets and bring it back to the hub and crossdock it to the appropriate trailers. Then second shift comes in (Road driver/dock worker) and moves it to a bigger central hubs where there are numerous trailers for the other hubs. There the freight is cross docked to the appropriate trailer. Then they bring the trailer that was filled up intended for their area back. When they get back they cross dock the freight for each P&D drivers trailer. The P&D's come back in, rinse and repeat. These type LTL drivers make use of a dolphin (scanner) and scan each box or pallet. That is your lifeline of controlling where that box goes. It will tell you which trailer to cross dock it to. It also helps with tracking that the customer can see. There are office people working the computers every day.

It's basically a spider web of gather freight in one area, take it to a central location and sort it out to go to different areas where it's then redistributed. There are other jobs like you might have a linehaul driver that will take freight from one big hub to another big hub. Then as with the big companies that use jets but it's all the same principle of moving freight from point A to B to C to D, etc. and cross docking until it gets to the final truck.

The USPS uses the same principles. The beginning and end use mail trucks because they deal with small letters, UPS and Fedex use vans because they deal with small boxes, and like Central pick up and deliver with semi's because they deal with pallets. But with all the inner workings are done with 18 wheelers.

Like ac120 said there is even OTR LTL where you have one customer that wants a third of a truck of different fruits which requires different pickups gathering it. He can't use a whole truck. So everything is coordinated to find multiple customers on the other end. You might have 4 pick ups in CA and then travel to the east coast and that freight spreads out to 3 deliveries. That is also LTL but not near as complicated of a spider web. It also might not be a regular thing as it might be handled through a broker.

 

thanks for posting this question! it cleared up a question for me too.

 

I do p/d, i usually have anywhere from 6 to 12 deliveries and 3 to 7 pick ups everyday. I also usually only drive 50 to 65 miles a day

 

NOTE: In the LTL world, the phrase "no touch freight" does not exist... the driver will touch/lift/haul everything at least to the back of the trailer.