How many units fit in your trailer?
Enter your cargo's length, width, height and weight, pick a trailer, and see exactly how many fit - rendered in 3D.
By implementing Cargo planner everyone became an expert in truck planning. Planning trucks is now done first time right. It enables you organization being much more efficient, and avoids waste of communication, misinterpretations, and discussions. E2E the improved efficiency saved us 0,5FTE.
Martijn Spee | Manager Transport EMEA, Ricoh Europe SCM B.V.
Multiple Trailer Types
Custom trailers
Road trains
Routing
Out of Gauge Cargoes
Axle weight limitations
Pipes, drums and boxes
Utilize containers better and plan faster
Cargo-planners benefits are accessible at first use and allows you to
Save money
Load more cargoes in your containers and increase efficiency.
Save time
Thousands of cargoes, multiple containers - it usually takes a few seconds to create your load plan
Gain Clarity
With our 3D-visualizations, you and your stakeholders can see, edit and share clear information.
Save environment
Reduce the number of trucks used to ship your boxes - a direct positive impact on the environment
What is trailer load planning?
Trailer load planning is deciding how a shipment is arranged on a truck before anyone starts loading it: which trailer to send, what goes where on the deck, what stacks on what, and in what order it comes off at each stop. On the road it is not only a question of whether the freight fits - a trailer can be legal on total weight and still be illegal on an individual axle, and finding that out at a weigh station is expensive.
A truck loading calculator does that arithmetic up front. You give it your cargo and your available trailers, and it returns a load plan: a 3D layout, a trailer count, the axle loads that layout produces, and loading instructions the yard can actually follow.
The four limits that decide a trailer
Floor space
Most road freight is measured in floor space rather than volume, because so much of it cannot be stacked. That is what loading metres (LDM) measure - how much of the trailer's length a consignment consumes across its full width. It is the unit most European road freight is quoted and charged in.
Gross weight
The legal ceiling for the whole vehicle, which differs by country and by configuration. Dense freight hits this long before the deck is full - and a trailer running at its weight limit with half its floor empty is a routing problem, not a packing one.
Axle weight
The one that catches people out. Legal limits apply per axle group, not just to the total, so where the weight sits matters as much as how much there is. Shifting a single heavy item forward or back changes how load is shared between the drive and trailer axles.
Height and over-dimension
Enclosed trailers cap height at the roof. Open-deck trailers do not - the limit becomes the legal travelling height above the deck, which is why step decks and low boys exist: they lower the deck to buy back headroom. Anything past the legal envelope becomes an out-of-gauge move needing permits.
Why axle weight is worth planning for
Two trailers can carry the same total weight and only one of them is legal. Because limits apply per axle group, a load concentrated toward the front overloads the drive axles while the trailer axles sit under their limit - the truck is legal on paper and overweight in practice. The usual fix is to move a small number of heavy items, but working out which ones by hand, for every load, is not realistic at volume.
Cargo-Planner takes axle limits as an input rather than reporting them afterwards. You set the limits for the front and rear axle groups, and it arranges the load to stay inside them while still maximising utilisation - so the plan you get is one that can legally leave the yard.
Load order on multi-stop routes
On a multi-drop route, packing efficiently and packing correctly are different goals. The densest possible arrangement is worthless if the first delivery is buried at the headboard behind three other consignments. What matters is that each stop's freight is reachable when the truck arrives, in reverse order of delivery.
Set a destination on each item and Cargo-Planner will work out the route and set the load order to match, so nothing has to be unloaded and reloaded at the kerb to reach what is behind it.
Trailer and truck dimensions
Interior dimensions, capacity and maximum payload for the trailers and trucks used in most road freight. These are the same figures Cargo-Planner loads against, taken from our equipment library - so a load plan you build uses exactly the numbers you see here.
Interior dimensions vary by manufacturer, model year and build spec - a 53ft van from one builder is not identical to another. Treat these as the standard planning values and check your carrier's spec sheet when a few inches decide whether the load fits.
US dry vans and box trucks
Enclosed trailers loaded through rear doors. The 53ft semi is the default for domestic US truckload freight; box trucks vary more than trailers do, because the body and chassis come from different manufacturers.
| Trailer | Internal L × W × H | Capacity | Max payload |
|---|---|---|---|
| 53ft Semi (US) | 52.5 × 8.4 × 9.2 ft 16.00 × 2.56 × 2.79 m | 4,036 ft³ 114.3 m³ | 39,993 lbs 18,141 kg |
| 48ft Semi (US) | 47.7 × 8.4 × 9.2 ft 14.55 × 2.56 × 2.79 m | 3,670 ft³ 103.9 m³ | 39,993 lbs 18,141 kg |
| 26ft Box Truck | 26.0 × 8.5 × 8.5 ft 7.92 × 2.59 × 2.59 m | 1,879 ft³ 53.2 m³ | 10,000 lbs 4,536 kg |
| 53ft High Cube Rail Container (US) | 52.5 × 8.2 × 9.1 ft 16.01 × 2.50 × 2.78 m | 3,935 ft³ 111.4 m³ | 43,499 lbs 19,731 kg |
US open-deck trailers
No roof or side walls, so cargo is loaded by crane or forklift from above or the side. There is no enclosed height, which is why these carry no capacity figure - the limit is the legal load height above the deck, not the trailer itself.
| Trailer | Internal L × W × H | Capacity | Max payload |
|---|---|---|---|
| 48ft Flatbed Trailer (US) | 48.0 × 8.5 ft 14.63 × 2.59 m | — | 44,992 lbs 20,408 kg |
| 53ft Flatbed Trailer (US) | 53.0 × 8.5 ft 16.15 × 2.59 m | — | 44,992 lbs 20,408 kg |
| 53ft Step Deck Trailer (US) | 53.0 × 8.5 ft 16.15 × 2.59 m | — | 39,993 lbs 18,141 kg |
| Double Drop Trailer - Low Boy | 48.0 × 8.5 ft 14.63 × 2.59 m | — | 39,993 lbs 18,141 kg |
| RGN (Extendable) | 48.0 × 8.5 ft 14.63 × 2.59 m | — | 80,001 lbs 36,288 kg |
European trailers
Built to EU road limits, which allow more payload than US equipment but less length. A megatrailer trades ride height for internal height to fit three pallet layers.
| Trailer | Internal L × W × H | Capacity | Max payload |
|---|---|---|---|
| Box Trailer (EU) | 44.7 × 8.1 × 8.9 ft 13.62 × 2.46 × 2.70 m | 3,195 ft³ 90.5 m³ | 47,399 lbs 21,500 kg |
| Curtain trailer (EU) | 44.6 × 8.1 × 8.9 ft 13.60 × 2.48 × 2.72 m | 3,240 ft³ 91.7 m³ | 55,115 lbs 25,000 kg |
| Megatrailer (EU) | 44.7 × 8.1 × 9.8 ft 13.62 × 2.48 × 3.00 m | 3,579 ft³ 101.3 m³ | 72,312 lbs 32,800 kg |
| Double Deck Trailer | 44.7 × 8.1 × 13.1 ft 13.62 × 2.48 × 4.00 m | 4,771 ft³ 135.1 m³ | 69,005 lbs 31,300 kg |
| Open Trailer (EU) | 45.8 × 8.1 ft 13.95 × 2.48 m | — | 70,327 lbs 31,900 kg |
Running equipment that isn't listed - a road train, a super link, or an extendable low boy with eight axles? The full equipment library has every type Cargo-Planner ships with, and the container builder lets you define your own trailer with the exact deck heights and axle layout you run.