Services that provide heavy haulage in the UK typically have fleets of vehicles that can safely and conveniently transport large stock from a to b, and many companies find it far more cost-effective to use professional heavy haulage services rather than purchasing their own vehicles.

Their role is to collect the goods from your depot, load them onto the vehicle, and transport them safely and swiftly to your chosen location. Many such services also provide customers with containers that they can use to transport the goods.

Not sure whether you need to use a heavy haulage company? Let’s take a closer look.

Do you need heavy haulage?

For businesses needing to transport huge amounts of a product – from grain to bulk goods – to a variety of locations in the area, or throughout the country, heavy haulage is essential. Additionally, if your company sells big products such as farming equipment or cars, heavy haulage is always required to transport the items efficiently to their desired locations.

When searching for a local heavy haulage company to help you transport goods, be sure to ask them what types of goods they typically deal with, how they operate their vehicles, whether they require any help moving freight, and how often they’re able to run deliveries for you.

What are the different types of heavy haulage?

There are 8 common types of heavy haulage, each of which are listed below along with a brief description:

• General

Primarily used by the retail, agriculture and healthcare industry, to name but a few, general haulage is usually used by companies needing to transport items that are considered as being safe-to-transport.

• Plant

The vehicles used to transport heavy plant machinery are equipped with safety features such as winches, that make loading, unloading and transporting of items such as diggers, dumpers and cranes, simple and safe.

• Hazardous

Substances such as chemicals, explosives or gas are transported via this method, which requires haulage companies and their vehicles to be in compliance with certain legal requirements in order to be able to transport such goods.

• Heavy

This method is used mainly to transport heavy loads on public roads, and there are a number of different levels of this type of heavy haulage in Southampton, with vehicles carrying different weight bands.

• Vehicle

Typically used by car sales companies or manufacturers to get their cars from the factory to the showroom, vehicle haulage transports cars safely and efficiently from one location to another. Vehicles in this haulage category are modified to ensure the safe transportation of all manner of cars.

• Fragile load

Ideal for safely transporting breakable objects like delicate electronics or items made of glass, fragile load haulage gives the peace of mind that nothing being moved will be broken in transit. Companies offering this type of haulage typically have specialist equipment to help the transportation of breakable goods go without a hitch, and train their employees in safe driving.

• Parcel delivery

For companies that need to transport large amounts of packages and parcels on a regular basis, parcel delivery services are absolutely essential, and help get goods to customers as quickly as possible.

• Abnormal load

This is usually used for all other goods that don’t fit into any of the categories listed above, and companies providing this form of haulage tend to have a range of vehicles to accommodate a range of different objects. A static caravan, for example, would be classed as an abnormal load that cannot be safely transported by any other method.

Heavy haulage is vital for many companies, and as an affordable and convenient way of transporting goods efficiently from one place to another, it makes far more sense to use the services of a heavy haulage company.