In the first quarter of 2026 we measured the loaded cube of every outbound trailer leaving Meeks Boulevard, against the theoretical maximum for what was on it. We expected to find an efficiency problem. We found a scheduling problem wearing an efficiency problem's clothes.
The headline numbers
| Utilisation band | Share of loads | Average cost penalty per unit |
|---|---|---|
| Over 90% of usable cube | 41% | Baseline |
| 75 – 90% | 26% | +9% |
| 60 – 75% | 22% | +24% |
| Under 60% | 11% | +48% |
A third of loads sat below 75%. On empty corrugated, where you are buying space rather than weight, that maps almost linearly onto cost per unit — hence the penalties in the right-hand column.
Why trailers leave half empty
We expected the answer to be awkward box geometry. It was not. We went back through every load under 75% and coded the reason.
- Customer needed delivery on a specific date and the balance of the order was not graded yet — 38%
- Mixed sizes that genuinely nest badly — 19%
- Erected rather than knocked-down shipment at customer request — 16%
- Weight limit reached before cube, on dense accessory items — 12%
- Our own scheduling error — 9%
- Dock or receiving constraint at the destination — 6%
The largest single cause is a date. Somebody needs boxes on Thursday, we have 60% of the order graded by Wednesday, and the trailer goes anyway. That is a reasonable commercial decision in the moment and an expensive one in aggregate.
The knocked-down question
Sixteen percent of under-filled loads were shipped erected because the customer asked. We understand why: erecting boxes is labour, and if your receiving team is already stretched, a pre-erected gaylord looks like a gift.
The arithmetic is brutal, though. The same 53-foot trailer carries 62 erected 48 × 40 × 36 gaylords, or 534 knocked down. That is 8.6 times the quantity for the same linehaul. Unless your labour is extraordinarily expensive or your receiving dock genuinely cannot erect a box, knocked-down wins by a distance that nothing else on the invoice can close.
We have never seen a case where the labour saved by shipping erected exceeded the freight wasted. Not once.
What we changed
Four things, none of them clever.
- We now quote a cube figure on every order confirmation, alongside the price. Customers who can see that their order fills 61% of a trailer start asking what would fill the rest.
- We offer to hold a partial order and ship complete, with the delivered price difference shown both ways. About half take it.
- We ask about the destination dock before quoting, not after. A site with no forklift changes everything.
- Our own scheduling errors got a named owner. That 9% is now under 4%.
What you can change
If you buy packaging, the highest-leverage thing you can do is widen your delivery window. A three-day window instead of a fixed date lets your supplier consolidate, and on low-density freight that is worth more than any volume discount you will negotiate.
The second is to stop ordering erected containers out of habit. If your receiving team cannot erect them, say so and we will quote it honestly — but check first, because the answer has usually changed since the last time anybody asked.
The carbon footnote
Every one of these percentages is also a carbon figure. A load at 60% utilisation produces the same transport emissions as one at 95% and delivers a third less product. On our 2026 numbers, lifting average utilisation from 78% to 86% removed roughly 41 tonnes of CO₂e from our outbound freight over the year, without buying a single thing.
Our pieces are written by the people who do the work rather than by a content agency, which is why they contain more numbers and fewer adjectives than is fashionable. If a figure here does not match your experience, we would genuinely like to hear about it — two of our published coefficients have changed that way.