Being Thrifty With Power Only Trucking
Storage, an often over-looked and under used function of most types of trucking trailers. The only concern an owner will face is that finding a trucking company that is willing to leave its dry vans with the customer idle without charging the client for what those "trailers" could be making out there on the road. And this concern is being addressed by a concept called "Power Only" trucking.
Power only trucking is the industry term for providing the tractor to move others' trailer/s. Trucking companies that offer power only service are used for different hauling jobs where the customer owns a trailer that requires to be moved but is either unable or unwilling to move his trailer with his own equipment. A perfect example of the utilization of power only trucking is when new trailers are being delivered to a trucking company. Power only truckers will deliver the trailers to the trucking company's depot and leaves them there.
Here are some types of trailers that are designed to stay in one location for a long time. Owning or planning to own any of these, power-only trucking may be the best option for moving these trailers from one place to another.
Job Sites: Both for offices and equipment storage.
Equipment trailers and job site trailers are trailers that are likely to remain at the job site for an extended time. Most companies that own these kind of trailers often avoids the purchase of their own tractors and relies heavily on the services of power only haulers to move the trailer from site to site. Construction companies are perfect examples of companies with such trailers. They use job site trailers as their remote offices or bunkers.
Exhibits and Promotions,
An exhibit trailer has the same criteria as job site trailers. Exhibit will often be moved to a location and will be set up and remain in that place for an indefinite period of time. The cost of buying a tractor and employing a driver to move the exhibit to its destination, and then remaining idle until the next location would be excessive. The power only hauler can carry the trailer to its new location, and then go on another assignment, returning when the exhibit is ready to be moved again.
Disaster Relief or Mobile Operation Centers.
Disaster relief organizations have ready packed trailers on stand by. These trailers are loaded with emergency supplies and stand ready to respond to a disaster site. Again, the cost of maintaining tractors and drivers who would be vacant until a disaster strikes would be prohibitive. The relief organization, instead, hires power only haulers to transport the trailers to where they are needed, when they are needed.
Heavy equipment that is Occasionally Moved
Power-only trucking is also reliable for moving tractors in certain situations. A common example is when companies need to move a tractor from place to place, but dont have a driver available for the job or the heavy equipment is not allowed to run through main thoroughfares. Many tractors are capable of hauling several other tractors at a time. Heavy equipments such as bulldozers, cranes, and other heavy apparatus like huge generators are almost often being hauled by power only truckers.
Thinking about it, each situations feature scenarios where one will think a full time trailer is necessary. But cost of hiring a driver alone would be expensive enough not to mention the cost to purchase a tractor unit and its maintenance (gas, change oil, spare parts, etc.).
Power-only trucking is considered a rather economical option for someone who requires it.The market seems to be ample and quite competitive enough; there are a lot of drivers willing to take on a power-only haul service on times no other work is being presented to them. There are also many hauling companies who operate solely in this market, and are equipped with specially fitted tractors that are capable of moving nearly any type of trailer.
