We’re often asked for the reasons behind paying a Limited Access Fee for certain deliveries. Places like hotels, mini storage facilities, prisons, retirement homes, and similar locations that seem like they’d be quick and easy to drop off a shipment – but instead, you have to pay extra!
The real reason for those fees?
Those facilities often don’t have a dock where the LTL carrier can easily, and quickly, offload the shipment.
These places typically require an appointment.
Then they have to track down the maintenance staff.
Then they have to figure out how to get the truck into a safe spot to unload.
Each step takes time, and the carrier needs to be compensated for that time – which is where the fees come in.
The time per location may only be 20 minutes, and might not seem like it’s worth paying an extra fee for, but to the carrier, it adds up in a big way. 1 delivery a day for 5 days, and you have an hour and a half of time spent waiting to deliver. If that driver is making multiple deliveries a day, it can quickly add up to half a day or more spent waiting to even make a delivery.
Sure, some deliveries are quicker, but some are also slower – without a loading dock, larger deliveries may take up to an hour!
As a result, all carriers will add a fee for these deliveries, to offset their own costs in making them.
In general, most carriers classify a Limited Access Delivery (or LAD) as falling into one of the following criteria:
Not sure if your business falls into one of those categories? Here’s some of the most common examples:
This list is far from comprehensive, but each LTL carrier has their own detailed list of limited access deliveries.
If you’d like more detailed information regarding the overall LTL shipping process, you can click through to read our comprehensive Shipping and Receiving guide, which can answer many of your questions.
As always, you can reach us directly by calling 310-521-1200 and selecting option 2. Our staff is standing by to help with your supply chain needs.
Whether you're a company looking to improve one facet of your supply chain, your entire supply chain, or simply looking for a transportation and logistics consultation, we can help.
