Haulage is the business of transporting goods by road or rail between suppliers and large consumer outlets, factories, warehouses, or depots. This includes everything humans might wish to move in bulk - from vegetables and other foodstuffs, to clothes, ore,

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

, and other supplies. Haulage also involves the transportation of chemicals in large sealed containers, and the removal of

waste Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste pr ...

. As the word implies, goods are loaded into large trailers or carriages and hauled between different locations. Traditionally, this was by large animals such as horses or oxen - where the practice may also be called cartage or

drayage Drayage is the transport of goods over a short distance in the shipping and logistics industries. Drayage is often part of a longer overall move, such as from a ship to a warehouse. Some research defines it specifically as "a truck pickup from ...

. However, in the modern age, this act is mostly performed by trains or trucks - with large shipping vessels acting as intermediaries for crossing oceans.

Truck drivers A truck driver (commonly referred to as a trucker, teamster, or driver in the United States and Canada; a truckie in Australia and New Zealand; a HGV driver in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the European Union, a lorry driver, or driver in ...

on haulage shifts are typically male, and often work long and difficult hours with few breaks - regularly sleeping in their vehicles overnight and eating/showering at rest stops. It is expected that

Vehicular automation Vehicular automation involves the use of mechatronics, artificial intelligence, and multi-agent systems to assist the operator of a vehicle (car, aircraft, watercraft, or otherwise).Hu, J.; Bhowmick, P.; Lanzon, A.,Group Coordinated Control ...

will largely render human drivers obsolete within a few decades. Haulage is also known as 'horizontal transport'. This contrasts with 'vertical transport' of the same such materials with

cranes Crane or cranes may refer to: Common meanings * Crane (bird), a large, long-necked bird * Crane (machine), industrial machinery for lifting ** Crane (rail), a crane suited for use on railroads People and fictional characters * Crane (surname ...

, known as hoisting.

Cost

Haulage fees, sometimes also simply called "haulage", include the charges made for hauling

freight Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including tran ...

cart A cart or dray (Australia and New Zealand) is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people. It is different from the flatbed ...

s, drays, lorries, or

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame constructi ...

s, and is incorporated for example in the cost of loading raw ore at a mine site and transporting it to a processing plant. A

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

, supplying cars, may negotiate rates with customers located on another railway's line, the road granting haulage rights. This differs from

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may ...

in that the host railway operates the trains for the other railway, where with trackage rights, the secondary railway operates trains over the host's tracking

References

Blaszak, Michael W. "ABC's of Railroading: Trackage and Haulage Rights," ''Trains'', 1 May 2006, accessed 30 August 2011.
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120920014201/http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20Reference/ABCs%20of%20Railroading/2006/05/Trackage%20and%20haulage%20rights.aspx , date=20 September 2012 Freight transport

Cost

See also

References