It's complicated: getting LTL freight to and from Alaska.

• Author: Beaumont, Tami
• Position: TRANSPORTATION

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It's said that good things come in small packages. In the transportation industry, these small packages are known as Less-than-Truckload (LTL) freight and usually range from 150 to 15,000 pounds.

"Anything that is less than a truckload of freight, from a small package up to whatever we would consider a full truckload, is LTL," says Paul Friese, Alaska sales manager for Lynden Transport in Anchorage. "Depending on size, shipments are shrink-wrapped with other packages to make up a full pallet to be loaded onto a truck, barge or plane in a mixed-freight environment."

Although Truckload freight (TL) makes up a large share of the cargo moving to and from Alaska, the more economical LTL segment holds its own. Carlile Transportation Systems transports 1.4 billion pounds of freight per year and about half of it is LTL. Lynden Transport has been moving LTL freight to Alaska for more than 50 years, including one of the most memorable LTL loads to travel the Alcan Highway: a side of fresh beef trucked from Seattle to Carr's Market in Fairbanks in 1954. LTL freight can be anything from fresh meat to cowboy boots.

"How Alaska's LTL freight travels interstate and intrastate can be complicated," Friese says. "It's our job to understand all the options and make it easy for our customers to use and understand."

"You can't just bring a box to us and we'll throw it on the boat," says John Van Treek, Operations Manager for Carlile's Anchorage Terminal. "We need to consolidate it into one of the shipping containers."

Transportation companies design the routes of their freight to cater to their customers' time and financial constraints. Lynden calls its unique version of this "Dynamic Routing."

"Everybody's working to control their costs," says Friese, "and Lynden has the ability to move LTL freight by land, sea or air through its family of transportation companies. Our Dynamic Routing service allows customers to only pay for the speed that they need." Lynden uses trucks, ships, barges, ferry or aircraft in any combination to balance speed and cost when shipping to any point in Alaska. The delivery chain can be slowed or accelerated depending on each customer's specific needs, or needs that change en route.

"Carlile offers customers rail service for less time-sensitive shipments," says Van Treek. "We rail it to Tacoma and barge it up to save the customer money."

Consolidating Points

Both Lynden and Carlile operate LTL consolidating points in Tacoma...