Truck Equipment Types & Accessorial Fees, Explained

Equipment types

The trailer decides the rate more than the lane does. If you know what you're ordering and why, the quote conversation changes.

Enclosed — box trailers

Dry Van 53′

Carries: Palletized and boxed freight — about 26 pallet positions. The default for most LTL and truckload moves.
Rate driver: Availability. Vans are everywhere, so the lane and timing set the price.

Dry Van 48′

Carries: The same freight as a 53′, ~22 pallets. Common on regional and urban routes.
Rate driver: Scarcity — fewer 48s on the road, so they can price close to 53s.

Pup Trailer (28′)

Carries: LTL freight. Pups link together in doubles for line-haul, then split for local delivery.
Rate driver: Line-haul vs. local mix — your LTL price is built from these legs.

Reefer

Carries: Temperature-controlled freight: food, beverage, pharma. Set point held from dock to dock.
Rate driver: Equipment scarcity plus fuel for the unit — reefer rates hold a stubborn premium.

Heated Van

Carries: Freeze-sensitive freight in winter — paint, chemicals, some food products.
Rate driver: Seasonal. Cheap in July, scarce and priced accordingly in January.

Sprinter / Cube Van

Carries: Parcel-scale freight: a few skids or rolling carts, dock-to-door fast.
Rate driver: Speed and access, not distance — you're paying for the same-day window.

Open deck

Flatbed

Carries: Freight that won't fit or can't go in a van: steel, lumber, machinery, crated equipment.
Rate driver: Tarping, securing, and weather risk — plus driver labour at both ends.

Step Deck (Drop Deck)

Carries: Tall freight — up to ~10′ loaded — that a flatbed or van door can't take.
Rate driver: Permits and escorts creep in as height grows.

Double Drop / Lowboy

Carries: Heavy equipment and oversized loads: excavators, transformers, industrial machinery.
Rate driver: Permits, escorts, and route planning — the rate is mostly paperwork.

Curtain Side / Conestoga

Carries: Flatbed freight that needs weather protection without the tarping labour.
Rate driver: Equipment scarcity — fewer of these exist, and they price like it.

Bulk & specialized

Tanker

Carries: Liquid bulk — food-grade, chemical, fuel — in dedicated trailers.
Rate driver: Washouts and commodity certification between loads.

Pneumatic / Hopper

Carries: Dry bulk: flour, cement, plastic resin, feed.
Rate driver: Loading/unloading equipment and time at the silo.

Live Floor (Walking Floor)

Carries: Pallets, recyclables, and bulk that unloads itself by moving floor slats.
Rate driver: No dock or forklift needed at delivery — you're paying to skip the receiver's equipment.

Intermodal Container + Chassis

Carries: 20′, 40′, and 53′ boxes that move by truck and rail without touching the cargo.
Rate driver: Rail leg plus chassis rental — cheaper on long lanes, slower door to door.

Accessorial fees

Everything after the line-haul. Individually small; collectively where invoice surprises live. The LiveLOADS tips highlight the fees most often worth a phone call.

Time-based

Detention: The truck waits past an agreed free period (usually 2 hours), and the meter runs per hour. The most disputed line in freight — because start times are rarely recorded. If your record doesn't show when the truck arrived, you're paying from their word.
LiveLOADS tip: Challenge often
Layover: The driver is held overnight — load cancelled, receiver closed, freight not ready. Typically a flat fee plus the lost day.
TONU — Truck Order Not Used: A cancellation fee when a truck shows up and the load isn't there. Legitimate inside the carrier's cutoff window; worth questioning outside it.
LiveLOADS tip: Read the cutoff
Storage: Freight or a trailer held at a terminal past free time. Avoidable with a scheduled delivery — expensive without one.
Demurrage: The container version of detention — chassis and box sitting at port or rail yard too long. Grows daily, and it compounds.

Handling & delivery

Liftgate: A mechanical lift for deliveries with no dock. Legitimate at retail and residential stops; questionable at a warehouse that has one.
LiveLOADS tip: Verify need
Inside Delivery: Moved beyond the tailgate or curb — into a store, up a ramp, to a specific door.
Residential / Limited Access: Homes, farms, camps, some retail strips — anywhere a 53′ shouldn't be. Often bundled quietly into LTL quotes.
Appointment / Notification: A scheduled window at the receiver. Some carriers charge to make the call; some build it in. Worth knowing which before the invoice arrives.
Re-Delivery: First attempt failed — dock closed, no receiver, refused. A flat fee that stacks fast when appointment details live in email.
LiveLOADS tip: Challenge often
Lumper Fee: Third-party unloading at a distribution centre, charged back to the load. Legitimate; the paperwork proving it sometimes isn't.
Driver Assist / Hand Unload: The driver helps unload. Small fee, real labour — and a flag that your dock may be understaffed.

Distance & structure

Fuel Surcharge (FSC): A floating percentage tied to a diesel index, recalculated weekly or monthly. Moves with the market — and rarely gets re-checked when the market falls.
Stop-Off Charge: Each extra pickup or drop beyond the first. Multi-stop LTL is priced from these — know the count before you quote.
Scale / Reweigh Fee: Verification weighing when declared weight looks off. If this appears regularly, the fix is better data at origin, not bigger fees.
After-Hours / Weekend: Pickup or delivery outside standard windows. Sometimes unavoidable — always quotable in advance.
Customs / Border Fees: Cross-border paperwork and brokerage handling. Fixed per shipment, and worth folding into the lane rate conversation.

The pattern

Accessorials survive on missing records.

Detention without an arrival time, re-delivery without an appointment, TONU outside the cutoff — every one of these is a claim against your invoice that your own record can confirm or kill. Quoted rate against billed rate, line by line, before the money goes out: that's invoice match, and it's where accessorial budgets go to be reborn.

Equipment and accessorials, itemized.