Welcome back to this transport blog where I want to take a look at the process of forwarding freight across land or sea or even through the air depending upon how urgently you need to get your stuff from point to point.

So we know that there are several different ways of getting your goods from collection point to their destination and these can be divided into three main groups and then subdivided down into the following methods:

Overland Freight

  • Road freight or road haulage
  • rail freight
  • Short distance truck or van delivery
  • Canal or river freight by barge (technically over-water freight)

Ocean Freight

  • Shipping via container ship
  • International shipping

Air Freight

  • International air cargo
  • Special delivery via air charter

These main groups and sub groups make up the main methods of transporting goods to wherever they need to be sent.

Depending upon the kind of cargo you need to send, forwarding freight by one of these methods will depend upon whether you need those goods to get there quickly or there is no particular deadline that needs to be met. For the urgent deliveries, you can use specialist courier services that can guarantee next day delivery anywhere in the country and often next day delivery overseas as long as an aircraft can get to the country within that time. Obviously you can’t get a package from the UK to Australia within 24 hours as its not physically possible. Yet!

When it comes to fast yet economical forwarding of cargo across land, the railways often offer the best deals, although you need to factor in the additional cost of the short hop delivery van costs to get your cargo from its pick up point to the railway depot and again to pick up that cargo from the destination railway depot and deliver it to its final destination.

The same goes for canal or river barge transportation, although this means of transport may be the cheapest per ton, it is also the slowest.

For international shipping the most economical way is via cargo ship but again this is relatively slow. If the cargo is large and heavy, of course this is often the only viable method as air transportation is limited to weight constraints.

Naturally the fastest way of getting your stuff from A to B is by air if it has to travel any great distance. You need to factor in the cost of each method and weigh it up against the delivery times and how easy or difficult your goods are to move. For further information on this topic, there is an excellent resource that can be found at: freight forwarders where all aspects of the industry are covered in greater depth.

Transport