How we read a lane before tendering it
Cubic Transport is a freight brokerage. We do not run trucks or terminals; we take a shipment, read the lane, and tender it to the carrier type that fits the freight: a standard LTL carrier, a volume LTL quote, a direct partial truckload (PTL) carrier, a dedicated 26' box truck, or a full 53' dry van. On high-cube freight the lane decides as much as the freight does, so every request gets four questions before any carrier sees it.
- How many driver days? A solo driver under the federal hours-of-service limits covers roughly 450 to 550 highway miles in a working day once pickup, fuel and a 30-minute break are counted. We plan at 500 miles per day. A 240-mile lane is a same-day or next-morning delivery; a 1,400-mile lane is three days on the road.
- How many cross-docks? An LTL shipment is picked up by a city driver, unloaded at the origin terminal, loaded onto a linehaul trailer, often re-handled at a breakbulk hub, then unloaded again at the destination terminal before a city driver delivers it. Each handling adds roughly a day and a forklift touch. Direct PTL skips all of them: the freight stays on one trailer from your dock to the consignee's dock.
- Which way does the freight flow? Lanes are not symmetrical. Trucks pile into Florida, Southern California and the Laredo border on loaded headhauls and look for anything to haul back out. The direction you ship can swing the rate by a third.
- What season is it? Produce harvests, retail import peaks, hurricane season and mountain-pass weather all pull capacity out of a corridor for weeks at a time. A rate that held in March may not hold in May.
The rest of this page applies those four questions across North America. Each corridor below has its own page with a lane table, commodity notes, equipment availability and a worked example from our dimensional engine at that lane's actual mileage.
The nine corridors at a glance
The table groups the lanes we see most often for 6 to 18 pallet, low-density shipments. Mileages are approximate highway miles between the named metros; your exact ZIP-to-ZIP distance will differ by a few percent.
| Corridor | Key interstates | Anchor lane | Approx. miles | Direct PTL | LTL via terminals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midwest manufacturing | I-94, I-65, I-70, I-75, I-80/90 | Chicago – Columbus | 355 | 1 day | 2 days |
| Texas & Gulf Coast | I-35, I-45, I-10, I-20 | Houston – Dallas | 240 | 1 day | 1–2 days |
| Southeast distribution | I-85, I-75, I-20, I-40, I-16 | Atlanta – Memphis | 390 | 1 day | 2 days |
| Southern California & Inland Empire | I-10, I-15, I-5, I-710 | Ontario, CA – Phoenix | 330 | 1 day | 2 days |
| Northeast & I-81/I-95 | I-95, I-78, I-81, I-80, I-76 | Harrisburg – Boston | 385 | 1 day | 2 days |
| Pacific Northwest | I-5, I-84, I-90, I-82 | Portland – Boise | 430 | 1 day | 2 days |
| Florida peninsula | I-75, I-95, I-4, Florida's Turnpike | Atlanta – Miami | 660 | 2 days | 2–3 days |
| U.S.–Canada cross-border | Hwy 401, I-94, I-87, QEW | Toronto – Chicago | 520 | 2 days + border | 3–4 days |
| U.S.–Mexico cross-border | I-35, I-10, I-8 | Laredo – Chicago | 1,380 | 3 days + crossing | 4–5 days |
LTL transit figures are typical published-service ranges for a shipment that moves cleanly through two or three terminals. A missed linehaul departure, a weekend, or a reweigh and reclass hold at a dimensioner adds a day. Direct PTL figures assume pickup in the morning and a driver running the lane without other stops; a shared truckload with a second customer's freight on board may add a stop and a few hours.
Transit math: direct partial truckload vs. LTL through terminals
When a shipper asks how long a lane takes, the honest answer depends on the mode. We use a simple planning rule and then correct it for the corridor.
| Distance band | Example lane | Direct PTL / box truck | Volume LTL | Standard LTL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 250 mi | Dallas – Houston (240 mi) | Same day or next morning | 1–2 days | 1–2 days |
| 250 – 500 mi | Atlanta – Memphis (390 mi) | 1 day | 2 days | 2 days |
| 500 – 1,000 mi | Chicago – Atlanta (720 mi) | 2 days | 2–3 days | 3–4 days |
| 1,000 – 1,500 mi | Laredo – Chicago (1,380 mi) | 3 days | 3–4 days | 4–5 days |
| 1,500 – 2,100 mi | Los Angeles – Chicago (2,015 mi) | 4–5 days solo, 2–3 team | 5 days | 5–6 days |
Volume LTL sits between the two because a volume quote usually rides the carrier's linehaul as a space filler: it is still cross-docked, but it is often loaded as a block and moves with fewer re-handlings than ten loose shipments of the same size. Direct PTL wins on time on every lane over about 250 miles and wins on damage on every lane, because a non-stackable skid that never leaves its trailer never meets a forklift at 2 a.m. in a breakbulk.
Headhaul, backhaul and why direction changes the price
A headhaul is the lane where loaded freight outweighs trucks: carriers can fill every trailer and price accordingly. A backhaul is the return direction where trucks outnumber loads and carriers cut rates to get home loaded. Partial truckload pricing magnifies the effect because a PTL carrier is looking for the second or third shipment to complete a trailer, and in a backhaul market almost any freight will do.
| Market | Headhaul direction (tighter, higher) | Backhaul direction (looser, lower) |
|---|---|---|
| Florida | Inbound from Atlanta, the Carolinas and the Midwest | Outbound from Miami, Orlando, Tampa, outside produce season |
| Southern California | Outbound import freight from the Inland Empire, especially August to October | Inbound to LA from Phoenix and the Mountain West |
| Laredo / South Texas | Northbound from the border toward Dallas, Chicago and the Southeast | Southbound into Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley |
| Pacific Northwest | Inbound from California and the Midwest | Outbound eastbound on I-84 and I-90 |
| Northeast | Inbound to New York City and New England | Outbound from New England toward Pennsylvania |
These are tendencies, not rules. A strong produce season can flip Florida outbound into the tight direction for weeks, and a soft import quarter can loosen Southern California. Our dimensional engine prices miles and linear feet symmetrically, so for a backhaul lane treat its PTL figure as the top of the range and for a headhaul lane as the floor. The live tender is what sets the real number.
Seasonal capacity calendar
Capacity in a corridor tightens when a seasonal surge pulls trucks onto other freight. These are the recurring pressure points we plan around when quoting partial truckload and volume LTL.
| Window | What happens | Corridors most affected |
|---|---|---|
| November – May | Winter vegetables, strawberries and citrus in Florida; Mexican produce crossing at Pharr, Laredo and Nogales; Rio Grande Valley harvest | Florida, Texas, Southeast reefer and dry van spillover |
| April – July | California produce moves north from the Imperial Valley to the Central Valley and Salinas; Southeast and Georgia produce | Southern California, Southeast |
| A 72-hour window each May | CVSA International Roadcheck inspection blitz; some owner-operators park for the window | All corridors, spot capacity |
| June 1 – November 30 | Atlantic hurricane season; storm relief freight and evacuations pull capacity suddenly | Florida, Gulf Coast, Carolinas |
| August – October | Retail import peak through LA/Long Beach, NY/NJ, Savannah and Houston ahead of the holidays | Inland Empire, Northern NJ, Savannah–Atlanta, Houston |
| Late November – December | Holiday retail plus driver home time; fewer trucks running the week of Thanksgiving and the last two weeks of December | All corridors |
| December – March | Mountain-pass chain controls and closures on Snoqualmie (I-90), Siskiyou (I-5), Tejon (I-5) and Cajon (I-15); lake-effect snow on I-90 and I-81 | Pacific Northwest, California, Northeast, Great Lakes |
Month-end and quarter-end also matter: shippers push freight out to make numbers, and the last three business days of a quarter routinely see tighter spot capacity on every lane. If your ship date is flexible by a day or two around those windows, say so on the request; it widens the carrier pool.
Worked example: 10 non-stackable skids, Chicago to Atlanta
Ten 48×40 skids of finished cabinetry, each 72 inches tall and 350 lbs including the pallet, marked do not stack, shipping 720 miles from the Chicago area to metro Atlanta down I-65 and I-75. Here is what our engine returns against the strictest common carrier trigger.
| Measure | Value | How it is derived |
|---|---|---|
| Actual cube | 800.0 cu ft | 48 × 40 × 72 ÷ 1,728 = 80 cu ft × 10 |
| Imputed (tariff) cube | 1,066.7 cu ft | Non-stackable units rated at the 96 in ceiling: 106.67 × 10 |
| Phantom cube | 266.7 cu ft | Imputed minus actual |
| Weight | 3,500 lbs | 350 × 10 |
| Actual density / class | 4.38 PCF · Class 175 | 3,500 ÷ 800 (Sub 4, 4 to under 6 PCF) |
| Imputed density / class | 3.28 PCF · Class 250 | 3,500 ÷ 1,066.7 (Sub 3) |
| Linear feet | 20.0 LF | 5 rows of two skids × 48 in ÷ 12 |
| Synthetic weight floor | 6,400 lbs | 1,066.7 cu ft × 6 PCF |
The load trips both the 750 cu ft / under 6 PCF cubic capacity trigger and the 12-linear-foot rule. Indicative costs at 720 miles:
| Mode | Indicative cost | Transit |
|---|---|---|
| Standard LTL, class 175, no penalty applied | $927 | 3–4 days |
| Standard LTL after cubic capacity re-bill | $1,640 | 3–4 days |
| Spot volume LTL | $823 | 2–3 days |
| Direct partial truckload | $945 | 2 days |
| Dedicated 26' box truck | $1,692 | 2 days |
| 53' full truckload | $1,764 | 2 days |
The $927 figure is the number a shipper sees when booking online, and it is the number that disappears when the dimensioner at the origin terminal measures 20 linear feet of do-not-stack skids. The $713 gap between it and the re-billed $1,640 is the risk being priced. Volume LTL at $823 is the cheapest clean option; direct PTL at $945 costs $122 more, lands within $18 of the as-booked LTL price, and delivers a day or two sooner with no cross-dock touches. These are indicative planning figures from our cost model, not quotes; carriers reissue their rules tariffs and the current issue governs any penalty.
Price your own lane: enter the skids and the highway miles
- Safe — tariff cube, density and linear feet stay under the carrier's cube and linear-foot rules.
- Tier 1 — 350 cu ft or more under 3 PCF (XPO, Saia, ABF, Estes): synthetic weight of 6 lbs per tariff cubic foot.
- Re-bill — 750 cu ft or more under 6 PCF, or linear feet at the carrier's rule: book volume LTL or direct partial truckload.
What to send with a lane request
A lane quote is only as good as the dimensions behind it. Before you request a rate, have these ready:
- Origin and destination ZIP codes and whether each end is a dock, a liftgate site, a construction jobsite or a residence.
- Handling units by line: count, length × width × height in inches, weight per unit including the pallet, and whether the top is flat and rigid enough to take another skid. Our cubic feet calculator builds this list and shows the imputed cube.
- Ship window: the earliest pickup date and the latest acceptable delivery. A two-day window on a backhaul lane often saves more than any rate negotiation.
- Appointment constraints: delivery appointments, receiving hours, union docks, or a jobsite that can only take freight on one day.
- Commodity and packaging: crated, palletized, blanket-wrapped, or loose; any hazmat placards; temperature limits.
With that, we compare a volume LTL quote, a direct PTL tender and, where the linear feet justify it, a dedicated box truck or full 53' trailer, and send back the options side by side with transit days. Requests go to rates@cubictransport.com or through the form.