LTL vs FTL
LTL and FTL are the two basic ways to move cargo by road.
- FTL (full-truckload) – your cargo fills a truck. One sender, one consignee, direct route.
- LTL (less-than-truckload) – your cargo shares a truck with shipments from other senders. Multiple pickups and deliveries, often via a cross-dock.
Choosing between them is a trade-off between cost, speed, handling risk and CO₂ per shipment.
Side-by-side
| FTL | LTL | |
|---|---|---|
| Cargo volume | Roughly > 13 pallets / > 15 tonnes | 1–12 pallets / < 15 tonnes |
| Senders per truck | 1 | Many |
| Route | Direct | Via cross-dock / consolidation hub |
| Transit time | Fastest | Slower, more variable |
| Cost for shipper | Higher absolute, lower per kg/m³ if you fill it | Lower absolute, higher per kg/m³ |
| Handling risk | Minimal (loaded once, unloaded once) | Higher (multiple handling moments) |
| CO₂ per shipment | High if truck is half empty | Lower per shipment thanks to consolidation |
| Best for | Urgent, fragile, large or high-value cargo | Smaller, time-flexible cargo |
When to choose FTL
- Cargo is large enough to fill a truck.
- Speed matters (no waiting for consolidation).
- Cargo is fragile, high-value, or needs special equipment.
- You want a single carrier accountable end-to-end.
When to choose LTL
- Cargo is small enough that a full truck would be half empty.
- Schedule has slack (a day or two extra is acceptable).
- You’re willing to accept more handling moments.
- You want a lower bill and a lower CO₂ per shipment.
What about groupage and partial loads?
- Groupage is essentially LTL marketed by freight forwarders, often with scheduled lanes.
- Partial load sits between LTL and FTL: your cargo doesn’t fill a truck but it isn’t broken down at a cross-dock either; the carrier combines a few partial loads on one direct route.
Implications for a TMS
A TMS for an operator running both modes needs to:
- Handle multiple shipments per trip with their own pickups, deliveries, weights and volumes.
- Allocate cost and revenue per shipment, not per trip, so margin is real.
- Allocate CO₂ per shipment using weight or volume (see CO₂ reporting).
- Show the dispatcher the capacity left on a truck so groupage decisions are visible.
Routix is built around this: a trip can carry multiple shipments, each with its own commercial and operational data.
Related concepts
See this in Routix
To see how Routix handles both LTL consolidation and FTL execution, start on www.routix.com and then explore Dispatch and Shipments. Those are the key screens for combining multiple shipments on one trip while keeping margin and CO₂ visible per shipment.
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