J Z Transit

How the desk works

A full load is the whole vehicle. One consignor, one booking, one route, and the trailer goes nowhere else until the drop is made. The desk quotes a full load against the running time and the return position of the vehicle, so an outbound leg finishing near a known back-load is a different proposition from one finishing empty in a dead corner. Give the desk both ends of the job in the first message. Postcodes, pallet count, weight, height when it is over two metres, and the earliest and latest hours the goods can be handled at each end.

A part load takes a share of the deck. The rest of the deck belongs to other consignors on the same trunk, so a part load moves on the sheet the trunk already runs to. It is cheaper per pallet and slower door to door, because the freight waits at the Newport yard for the next departure west or east. Two things decide whether a part load makes tonight’s vehicle: whether the collection lands before the yard cut-off, and whether deck space is still open when it lands. The desk says which of the two is in question when it holds a booking over.

Groupage is what the collection round brings in. Pallets and cages come off the 7.5-tonne vehicle at the yard through the late morning, get weighed, get re-labelled with the trunk they are travelling on, and are staged in departure order against the bay. Consolidation is the point of the round. Four small collections out of Cwmbran, Pontypool and Caerphilly become one section of one trunk deck, and nobody pays for a vehicle they did not fill. Freight that misses the stage misses the trunk. It stands at the yard, dry and strapped, and it goes on the next one.

The driver carries the sheet, the consignment notes for every drop in running order, and blank notes for collections raised on site. Straps, corner boards, and a tail-lift where the drops need one. Photographs go on the phone at any point where the condition of a pallet is arguable, and the desk asks for them by exception. The vehicle is walked round before pull-out and defects are called in to the yard, not written up later.

Paperwork issued at booking is the consignment note and the reference the desk quotes back on the telephone. The note travels with the goods. It carries the consignor, the consignee, the pallet or cage count, the weight declared to the desk, and any handling condition agreed at booking. The signed copy comes back to the yard with the vehicle. The desk scans it against the sheet line, and the proof of delivery is available from the yard once that reconciliation is done, which for a west trunk drop means the following working morning and for a day collection means the same afternoon. Ask for a POD by the consignment note reference and the desk finds it in one search.

Hours are planned against the tachograph, not against optimism. The desk builds the sheet backwards from the last delivery window on the run, then checks that the block of driving between the yard and the break point stays inside the legal window. Where it does not, the drop moves to the other trunk or waits a day. The next section prints that same window as clock times, so a caller can see for themselves why a 16:00 collection in Swansea will not reach Bristol tonight.

The stretch worked from this yard

The trade runs on one road. West of Newport the sheet covers Cardiff, Bridgend, Port Talbot, Neath and Swansea, with the valleys reached off the A465 and the A470 on the collection round. East of the yard it is Magor, the Severn crossing, Avonmouth, Bristol, Swindon and the junctions between them. Anything inside that band can be collected and trunked on the same sheet. Outside it the desk still books, but the freight is handed to a scheduled trunk in the direction of travel, and the desk states at booking which leg is ours and where the handover happens. Two facts decide the shape of a run: where the vehicle finishes the night, and whether there is weight to bring back. A one-way job to the far end of the corridor prices differently from the same job on a lane with a standing back-load.

What the desk will not commit to

Timed deliveries to the minute are outside what this fleet offers. The sheet plans to a window, and a window is what the desk confirms. Traffic on the M4, a closed crossing, a bay that is not ready, a site with one forklift — each moves a drop by an hour, and the honest answer is that the desk cannot price certainty it does not control. Tonight’s trunk is settled once the collection is physically on the vehicle and the yard cut-off has passed. Hazardous goods, live animals, temperature-controlled freight and abnormal indivisible loads sit outside this fleet’s equipment, and the desk declines them at booking so a caller can place them elsewhere while there is still time in the day. Where a job is refused the desk gives the reason on the call.