FTL, LTL, FCL or LCL
Which mode of transport makes sense when, and how you can make your supply chain as efficient as possible.
Transport costs and transit times are often decisive factors in competitiveness today. Depending on the size of the shipment, the transport route or individual requirements, there are various types of transport that can be used for delivery: the most common are FTL, LTL, FCL and LCL transport. But what exactly do these abbreviations mean and which type of transport is best suited to which requirements? How can transports be consolidated into efficient milk runs? We discuss the respective advantages and disadvantages – and show how our digital solution can help you find the right transport rate.
Road transport or sea freight: What do FTL, LTL, FCL and LCL mean?
The abbreviations FTL, LTL, FCL and LCL come from English and stand for Full Truck Load, Less Than Truck Load, Full Container Load and Less Than Container Load. While FTL and LTL refer to road freight transport, FCL and LCL refer to container transport, often by sea freight.
- FTL – Full Truck Load
- LTL – Less Than Truck Load
- FCL – Full Container Load
- LCL – Less Than Container Load
FTL and LTL transport – the classics on the road
In full truck load transport, the entire truck loading area is used for a single shipment. It is therefore a complete load. An example: An automotive supplier delivers 24 special load carriers with car seats from its factory in Czechia directly to the assembly plant in Germany. Since the load volume fills the entire lorry, FTL transport is worthwhile. This is done exclusively and without transhipment directly to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM).
LTL, or less than truckload, transport, on the other hand, involves partial lorry loads. The order does not fill the entire loading capacity, but only takes up part of the lorry. Freight companies therefore usually combine partial loads from different customer orders in order to make the best possible use of the available loading space. For example: a smaller supplier in Italy sends only four containers with cable harnesses to Germany. Since it does not fill an entire lorry, the load carriers are consolidated by a freight forwarder and transported together with other automotive parts, for example. Part loads require particularly good planning on the part of the transport company, especially with regard to the optimal route for delivery to different recipients, the delivery time windows and the required loading space per order, so that the transports remain efficient and cost-effective.
FCL and LCL transport for international trade
Full container load (FCL) shipments are full container loads that usually transport goods by sea freight, i.e. they are used for international shipments. A container transports one shipment exclusively and is delivered to the recipient unopened. To ensure secure delivery, the containers are usually sealed: only the recipient is allowed to open and unload the container. Similar to full truck loads, FCL shipments are therefore particularly suitable for large shipments that ideally fill the entire container – either by weight or by volume. An FCL shipment by ship is organised, for example, when an OEM wants to import a full container load of engine blocks from Asia.
In less than container load (LCL) transport, similar to less than truckload shipments, several shipments from different shippers are consolidated in one container. For example, if a German supplier imports a few boxes of electronic components from South Korea, these are combined with other automotive goods in the container as an LCL shipment and shipped together. LCL transport is therefore useful for small freight, as the customer only pays for the volume or weight of their goods in the container.
Overview of tarrifs:
| Mode of transport | Suitable for | Benefits | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|---|
| FTL | Large, time-critical, or fragile shipments by road | Direct, fast, short waiting times, and minimal risk of damage | Pay for the entire truck, even if it is not fully loaded |
| LTL | Small or medium-sized shipments by road | Cost sharing with other broadcasters, flexible | More stops, longer delivery time |
| FCL | Large container loads, sensitive or expensive goods, sea & land | Fast and secure, no transshipment, low transport and theft risk thanks to container sealing, simple documentation and customs clearance | Pay the full container price, even if it is not completely full |
| LCL | Small freight, sea & land | Only pay for space you use, available capacity is utilized as efficiently as possible, transport routes become cheaper and more sustainable | Slow, complex customs clearance for each partial shipment, higher risk of damage or loss |
Demand-driven transport using milk runs
Transports that can be consolidated into so-called milk runs are particularly efficient. The logistics concept is named after the traditional milk suppliers in the USA and England, who only left a full milk bottle at the door if they could take an empty bottle with them in return. Applied to logistics, this means delivering according to demand while at the same time collecting empty load carriers or other goods required for production and transporting them onward. A vehicle visits several suppliers or customers on a fixed route and at defined times. This allows supply chains and production and assembly lines to be linked in such a way that an automatic supply cycle is created via the material flow. This not only reduces empty runs, but also lowers transport costs. Milkruns are therefore particularly suitable for areas with continuous material requirements, such as just-in-time production in the automotive industry. In addition, the optimized transport routes are more sustainable and automatically integrate disposal logistics.
However, manual planning based on the milk run principle is very complex: it requires stable, precisely timed processes and a high degree of coordination between all parties involved. In addition, the number and size of the goods to be transported must be fixed and constant demand must be guaranteed. Digital solutions that automatically take care of this coordination are therefore ideal for implementing the milk run concept.
Find the best freight rate with the help of digital solutions
Whether FTL, LTL, FCL, or LCL—the choice is often not as easy as it seems at first glance. This is where digital tools come in: software solutions such as transport management systems help companies automatically find the right transport rate. To do this, order specifics such as weight, volume, transit time, destination, and mode of transport are compared with the stored rate data and carrier contracts. The software then suggests the optimal freight rate. This eliminates manual comparison processes and research work: comparing different carrier offers, checking rate lists, or recalculating individual surcharges is no longer necessary. The reduced time required saves working hours and personnel costs, while transport costs are reduced by the automatic selection of the appropriate rate. At the same time, processes become more transparent, while automated calculations reduce the risk of input or estimation errors.
Freight rate optimization using the S2data Platform
The S2data Platform optimizes the entire transport process, analyzes networks at a strategic or tactical level, evaluates routes including freight rates, and replans them. Our algorithm uses production, warehouse, and transport data as a basis and automatically selects the optimal mode of transport—whether FTL, LTL, FCL, LCL, cross-dock, or regional freight forwarding—as well as the most cost-efficient carrier. If necessary, it consolidates FTL and LTL shipments into efficient milk runs and also enables intelligent inbound and outbound matching: The software ensures that full container transports and the return transport of empty containers are seamlessly coordinated, minimizing empty runs. Through forward-looking planning and dynamic capacity utilization calculation, significantly fewer truck orders can be realized while achieving higher capacity utilization, resulting in a considerable reduction in transport costs.
Flexible and holistic network optimization is particularly crucial in the automotive industry, where production volumes fluctuate greatly due to new model launches or phased-out series, but above all due to sales problems and the switch to e-mobility. The S2data Platform continuously adapts the network to changing conditions, calculates the best rates for the coming months, and combines individual routes into efficient milk runs. Overall, it automatically finds the transport rate that a company currently needs—whether FTL, LTL, FCL, or LCL.