Importing
Truck Cargo
Understanding the Process:
Stages of Freighting Truck Cargo
Understanding the Paperwork:
Import Documentation for Truck Cargo
All air cargo importations are required to include four major components, with additional requirements depending on the goods being transported. Each air cargo shipment must start with:
1. Commercial Invoice / Receipt of Purchase
2. Packing List / Content Details
3. Truck Bill of Lading
4. Truck Manifest Advisory
Each of the four requirements must have at least one document as evidence, but the documentation should accurately reflect the physical shipment. If for example a shipment includes contents sourced from multiple purchases, each corresponding invoice or receipt should be included to document the whole.
For more about import documentation requirements, please check out our dedicated page:
Understanding the Dynamic:
Insights on Truck Cargo
Truck cargo shipments are usually used overland for all kinds of goods, usually in circumstances where shipment locations either lack rail network availability or are in convenient proximity to the land border. Fresh produce is a great example: food spoilage begins soon, but the bulk value is not high enough to justify air cargo.
According to the 2020 data from The International Council of Clean Transportation, motor carriers are second best as cargo-fuel efficient vehicles. We are focusing on the semi tractors hauling trailers rather than personal motor vehicles. Motor carriers rank at about 155 ton-miles per gallon; meaning that for each gallon of fuel, 1 ton of cargo could go 155 miles, or 155 tons could go 1 mile equivalence when trucked. This second measure is a bit misleading, since it would take nine or ten trucks to carry that much weight in actuality. Resultantly, the cost of this mode of transport is usually relatively high as a freighting method, with a strong dependence on fuel pricing.
Truck cargo (internationally speaking) is limited by geographic availability of land borders, where motor carriers operating trucks are increasingly essential in every supply chain. The only significant exceptions are motorless carts or human power transportation, but you won't really experience that in the United States anymore. Truck cargo allows a higher degree of freedom, in regards to routing and time management, since truckers may circumvent weather and other environmental delays. Although U.S. regulation has increasingly limited the time any one driver can spend operating the rig, strategies like driver rotations and transition warehouses permit shippers to create logistics schemes that more closely align to their needs. Trucking is a notorious risk exposure for cargo theft, where adjacency security is only as good as the area they pass through, or the rest location. Additionally, the newest strategies of parasitic trucking are getting more sophisticated, affecting the freighting environment both directly and indirectly.
In most cases, the criticality depends on the scheduling and route. Highly secure supply chains may need to take several mitigation steps to strengthen the supply chain, whether through technology or effort. Most shipments will move by truck at some point in their supply chain, but if route, timing and equipment align, your cargo may be best suited to become truck freight.
Understanding Next Steps:
Let's Work Together on Truck Cargo
Unfortunately, Pilotfisch Solutions is not adequately suited to support Mexico-U.S. border crossing truck shipments of fresh produce and other perishable goods.
The problem is twofold:
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Agricultural exams, and certain other kinds of border examinations require the physical presence of the customs brokerage before CBP will begin their efforts.
-We operate out of Phoenix, Arizona.
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Certain perishable truck cargo is on such a tight timetable, the shipment is considered a loss to spoilage if there are delays of more than thirty minutes. Abandonment is a problem, and contingency networking is critical.
-Diversions and import deviations for truck cargo has specialized in tandem with the local facilities to accommodate the actual trucks and cargo while plans are changed. While we can assist with the aftermath of these situations, there is an element of local specialization and Pilotfisch has chosen not to compete until we are physically operating at the border (for problem 1 above.)
-The landscape changes quickly enough that our proficiencies elsewhere outshine the costs to stay savvy and compete with other locals.
We want you and your truck cargo to be successful, and in our experience of Mexico-crossing perishable goods, you will be even more successful with a local customs broker at the border. If your truck cargo is fresh produce or other perishable goods we apologize and suggest searching local to the border city or checkpoint to have a local broker on standby. We do not have any specific referral at this time.
For anything else, northern or southern border, Pilotfisch Solutions is well experienced with importing Truck cargo, and we have the solutions experience for spectrum of potential issues in truck cargo. In addition to the compliance activities involved with your truck cargo's customs clearance, we continue to manage your shipment's logistics so that parasitic costs are avoided, and unavoidable holds are mitigated. Our success depends upon your shipments' successes, and we want each truck cargo shipment to succeed!