subject: How Much Weight Can Courier Vehicles Carry? [print this page] When you're preparing a shipment to be sent with a courier company, one of the concerns that you may have could be about the weight limitations on courier vehicles. It is certainly true that every Chicago courier service vehicle is going to have its maximum capacity measured in two ways: the amount of volume it can fit into its cargo areas, and the amount of weight that it can legally (or structurally) carry.
However, the amount that a courier vehicle can carry is totally dependent on what type of vehicle that it is. The average courier company has a great deal of different vehicle types that make up their fleet. Every vehicle is going to have their own weight capacities, so it isn't really necessary to know what each vehicle can carry, as the couriers will always be able to find you the best vehicle for your particular shipment.
There are some general weight classes though which can give you a rough idea of what sorts of shipping options you're going to have available to you. If you're shipping something that weighs less than ten pounds and only shipping within the city, you might be able to use a bike messenger, for example. Anything over that would have to be put on a cargo van or in a small car messenger service.
Shipments that weight over 100lbs get shifted out of the parcel and package carrier into the next level of shipping. This is where a lot of people shipping cargo land, and it is called LTL, which stands for less than truck load. This is where a real truck is used rather than a smaller courier vehicle, but the load is shared between several clients of the courier company.
When shipments that weigh more than 10,000 lbs are being shipped, you will likely be told by the courier company that you're now going to be required to ship FTL. This means full truck load. FTL shipping is for when you need an entire truck in order to move your cargo.
This shouldn't stop people from calling their courier company just because they want to ship something that weighs more than 10,000 lbs. Courier companies generally have quite large fleets, and are more than capable of using multiple vehicles to make a delivery. The best thing to do is just to call them with an accurate description, including an accurate weight, of your shipment, and let them provide you a solution.
