Loading starts, and the maths begins
You have one trunk booked to the hub tonight. By three o'clock the office thinks it will be about full. By five, the warehouse is loading and it is clear it will not fit: a batch of non-stackable fulls from one customer, a couple of over-height pallets, and more halves than anyone counted.
Now the choice is between ringing for a second vehicle at short notice, leaving pallets behind and upsetting customers, or cramming the trailer and risking damage and a hub complaint. On other nights the trunk runs half empty and you pay for space you did not use.
Pallets are counted, but space is not
Most depots count consignments or pallets. A trunk fills by floor spaces, height and weight, and the relationship between them depends on the mix.
- Quarters and halves can stack on each other, or not, depending on the goods.
- Non-stackable fulls take a floor space each.
- Heavy pallets hit the weight limit before the trailer is full.
- Late collections change the picture after the trunk decision is made.
The warehouse lead knows how a trailer builds, but that knowledge is applied at loading time, which is too late to change the vehicle.
What bad trunk fill costs
Short-notice extra vehicles are expensive and not always available. Pallets left behind turn into failed next-day services and angry customers. Overloaded or badly built trailers damage goods and cause arguments at the hub. And a trunk that runs half full every Tuesday is cost you could have planned out.
It also creates pressure on the evening shift that repeats every night, because nobody has the information to plan a calmer loading.
And the trunk contract itself is often set on feel. Without a record of how full each night's trailer actually was, you cannot tell whether you need a bigger vehicle on Thursdays or a smaller one on Mondays, or whether a second trunk to a different hub would pay its way.
How we forecast trunk fill during the day
- Every booking carries size band, weight and a stackable flag, captured at booking or at collection by the driver.
- We turn the day's bookings into an estimated trailer build: floor spaces used, stacking opportunities and total weight, using rules your warehouse lead agrees.
- As collected pallets are scanned in, the estimate switches from booked to actual.
- A trunk board shows the forecast against the trailer's capacity through the afternoon, with a warning when it crosses a threshold you set.
- History by weekday and customer is used to estimate late bookings still to come.
- At loading time, the board suggests a loading order by stackability and weight to make the build easier.
| Pallet type | Space rule | Recorded by |
|---|---|---|
| Full, stackable | Shares a space with a light pallet | Booking or driver |
| Full, non-stackable | One floor space | Booking or driver |
| Half or quarter | Stacks in pairs or more | Booking |
| Over-height | Cannot be stacked on | Driver at collection |
The estimate is a guide for the decision, not a replacement for your loaders. They still build the trailer.
Trunk decisions made by mid-afternoon
The office sees tonight's trunk filling up hours earlier, and can book a second vehicle at a sensible time or move lower priority pallets. Quiet nights are visible early too, so you can take extra work or change the vehicle.
Over months, the history shows which nights run heavy, which customers send non-stackables, and whether your trunk contract matches your actual pattern.
Signs your trunk planning is guesswork
- You find out the trunk is too full once loading starts.
- Extra vehicles are booked at short notice.
- Pallets are left behind for the next night.
- Some nights the trunk runs well under capacity.
- Only the warehouse lead can judge how a trailer will build.