Associated transportation and approximate weight of cargo in the trailer

About six times a year, using Mouse Scale PRO, I detect an additional 2000 pounds or more of cargo after loading at the shipper. And it's not difficult to do.

The reason is simple: our app uses all key variables and constants of the truck and trailer in its calculations and provides information that is usually impossible to obtain with standard scale systems.

This is a next-generation system that calculates the actual load on the fifth wheel. Low-cost scale systems priced under $2,000 simply cannot do this.

When Mouse Scale PRO knows the empty weight of the trailer, it allows you to:

• calculate the actual cargo weight,
• estimate the center of gravity of the cargo,
• determine the remaining payload capacity of the truck.

It is precisely the lack of this information that has prevented large companies from ever creating an Uber-like system for backhaul freight in partially loaded trucks.

Without accurate data on cargo weight, center of gravity, and remaining payload capacity, and without moving the fifth wheel, it is impossible to add cargo safely and legally.

LTL and Partially Loaded Trucks

Without complete digital data, it is impossible to efficiently move LTL freight and reduce the number of half-empty trucks on the road.

Associated Transportations

Imagine that a shipper needs to send 8 pallets from Cleveland to Denver. They go to a website and see 5–10 trucks that are already heading in the right direction and can handle this shipment in the near future.

There is no need to take this partial load to a broker's warehouse and wait several days for the right truck. Associated transportation is profitable because the equipment costs are already paid for, and fuel consumption is minimal.

Key Takeaway

Axle weight is only an intermediate result.

It is a step toward more valuable, higher-level information:

• optimal tandem position,
• correct fifth-wheel placement,
• commercially critical cargo parameters.

To avoid losing time, fuel, and capacity, the industry needs full digitization, not just axle-weight calculations. Stopping at axle weight means stopping halfway.

And we'll talk about this in the next lesson.