If yours is a light product, you may run out of space before you hit your weight maximum; likewise, if the pallets are small, you may be able to stack far more than 48 pallets into the trailer. However, LTL trucking firms also take into account whether or not the product can be stacked safely without damaging it— which may further reduce the amount of product that can be safely transported in any given shipment.
When building LTL loads, planners work consider customer requirements, driver safety and transport regulation limits along with the freight on hand so that as much of the trailer is used as possible without wasting space or sacrificing service. The right mixture of freight is key; some products and pallets can be stacked, which allows trucking companies to fit more product into the trailer.
You may be shipping a full truckload of freight because it is convenient and direct, or you may operate more of a just in time supply chain where pallet shipping is the norm. Either way it pays to understand the overall limitations when building your loads or when packing freight onto pallets (minimizing product overhang on the pallet and keeping product to a standard pallet footprint will help your budget), so that you can get the most out of your transportation dollars — ship with Pivot to get a great price for the transportation of your goods.