What Is a Freight Transit Buffer and Why Do You Need It?

Managing logistics for High Stakes Freight™ involves the careful planning of routes, timelines, permits, escort vehicles, loading/unloading, and more. But, when it’s critical for your shipment to arrive on time, another important consideration is preparing for situations that you can’t control. One of the ways that we do this is by deploying our Transit Buffer strategy. In this article, we dive into what we mean by a Transit Buffer and why it’s so important when it comes to High Stakes Freight™. 

What is a Transit Buffer, exactly?

A Transit Buffer is a cushion of time between delivery and the moment the on-site crew needs the freight. At Stream Logistics, we schedule our drivers to arrive in town a full 24 hours early. In some cases, on longer transits, our drivers may arrive up to 48 hours ahead of time. The driver will park near the job site, out of the way, until it’s time to deliver.

Even with a lengthy delay — like a broken-down truck — the buffer allows for repair time, or time for our team to repower the load with another truck without impacting your project’s timeline and supply chain.

Delayed shipments can mean everything from dissatisfied clients to thousands of dollars spent in unused labor to interrupted project schedules —– not to mention, a tarnished reputation that could limit future business. A Transit Buffer is just one of our many behind-the-scenes strategies to ensure our clients have a seamless freight shipping experience every single time.

The Transit Buffer also gives us the flexibility to speed up deliveries, which would never occur with a routine freight company that delivers just-in-time, if that. So, if your construction crew gets ahead of schedule, we will have trucks in the area that can deliver more material early, which helps you gain control of your supply chain and over-deliver to your clients.

How does a Transit Buffer ensure on-time delivery?

Let’s say you need an oversized freight using a RGN trailer delivered on Monday. A routine freight company would simply pass along this information to their driver, informing them of the requested Monday delivery date and time. If anything goes wrong in transit, however, it will immediately impact your shipment delivery date.

Not good if your project’s success is on the line, is it?

Because we know the success of your supply chain relies heavily on on-time shipments, our commitment is to never get in the way of that. A Transit Buffer allows us to guarantee on-time delivery. 

Contractors and construction crews rave about us to our clients because we go above and beyond to add unexpected value. When contractors are managing many vendors, our clients being one of them, they appreciate the peace-of-mind knowing that our solutions are executed flawlessly. Then, our client is the hero.

And that’s what we live for.

If your High Stakes Freight™ must be delivered on-time (if not early!), connect with us! Our team of logistics and supply chain specialists will gladly show you how a Transit Buffer will give you and your client the peace-of-mind of on-time deliveries for your next big project.

Read more:

• What is a Pilot Car or Escort Vehicle?
• Over-Dimensional and Heavy Haul Permitting 101
• Route Surveys in Oversize Freight

Stream Logistics is a transportation logistics company specializing exclusively in High Stakes Freight™, or freight where there is significant risk in moving your product. We help you transport freight when there are projects with timelines and delivery sequences, shipments with high complexity, and shipments with unique constraints.