Curtainside trailers are growing in popularity because they offer a more flexible range of cargo options and configurations with a lighter and less cost intensive design. Whether you are already using a curtainside trailer or are interested in purchasing one in the future, Roland Curtains designs custom trailers on an individual basis depending on the parts and accessories that are most important to your transport company.
One-way rates do not a trucking company make. Your shipper may be happy to pay a high one-way rate, but if you are deadheading back, your one-way rate is (for all practical purposes) cut in half. Your one-way rate has to cover expenses both ways. Back-hauling will never be your main bread and butter, but getting a little income for heading home can make that one-way rate look mighty good.
At Roland Curtains, we design, engineer and manufacture curtainsides from new and used flatbed trailers.
So, what goes on in the curtainside trailer manufacturing process of these trailers?
Fleet managers are a special breed.
Like the guy balancing spinning pie plates on a stick, the fleet manager always has something up in the air that requires immediate attention. Keeping a private fleet on the road represents the largest recurrent expense in many companies. Competition is more keen than ever in freight hauling, and the options to distinguish your fleet from one across town or across the country are limited. Today’s fleet manager isn’t “the guy in the garage” anymore. To hold the job, you need expertise in a variety of disciplines that extend beyond the fleet itself, like finance, operations and sales. To stay competitive in the 21st century, you need to remain agile and informed. Here are some suggestions for keeping those plates spinning:
Back-hauls help make the return trip from shipping destinations profitable as well as productive.
Deadheading, driving an empty trailer back from a delivery, is a waste of fuel, driver time, and vehicle wear and tear on the return trip. Locating a back-haul load at or in the nearby vicinity of where the outbound load was delivered is the key to optimizing revenue opportunities.
Multi-tasking is increasingly the nature of the fleet manager's job.
It's a trend that seems likely to steepen as time goes by. Staying connected to the industry at large is just one of the items that demands daily attention. It’s important to keep up with industry trends, financial metrics, government regulation and advances in technology—all of which affect the freight industry and your company's ability to compete profitably. In addition to flipping through the pages of printed publications, the internet offers a number of sites that should be included in your bookmarks. The challenges posed by fleet management—and the ability to formulate the right decisions at the right time—rely on the quality of information you’re exposed to every day. Here are some reputable and clickable sources to keep you in touch with the pulse of the industry.
For decades, truck trailers came in basically two varieties: the enclosed van and the flatbed. Unfortunately, freight just kept getting more and more diverse, with different types demanding greater flexibility for hauling as well as options for loading and unloading. While progress was slow to catch up with these demands, the arrival of the curtainside trailer in the American market from Europe in the 1990s was a game-changing event for haulers and shippers alike.
Box trucks are a common sight on city streets every day. A closer look reveals the fact that, more and more, these short-haul, medium-load carriers are curtainside bodies. The Class B box truck in lengths up to 26 feet is the workhorse of local delivery. Companies ship items ranging from small boxes to mattresses to wall-sized flat-screens, all bound for local and regional destinations. The capacity to handle a wider variety of loads than a cargo van, combined with the economy of operating a truck smaller than a tractor-trailer, makes the workaday box truck a major player in the business of moving freight. Here are some of the reasons why curtainsides are becoming more common in that market:
Curtainsides have handled extreme loads over millions of miles... yet any freight vehicle is subject to wear and tear. Like a conventional flatbed or enclosed van, a curtainside trailer takes a beating during service on the road. Even though the construction of Roland Curtains are the best in the market, accidental damage or wear-related issues may need a fix.
Until recently, the infrastructure of trucking didn’t exactly occupy the cutting edge of innovation. While trucks themselves became more high-tech, software applications for the trucking business lagged behind. Today, the smartphone has become a must-have accessory for truckers and freight managers. Apps produced by a wide array of start-ups have gained ground and re-defined business as usual in the trucking industry. Here are just three trucking apps that now boast impressive download figures:
