SwitchQuick

Innovations in Trucking:
Creating a Safer and More Efficient Industry

As a carrier, if you were told there was a way to save millions of dollars in labor, annually, would that pique your interest? New innovations in the trucking industry are making trucking safer and more efficient every day. Progressive companies often win, leaving the competition far behind. Today, a solution now exists for reducing a two trailer and dolly hook and drop operation by 33%, providing numerous additional benefits to LTL carriers. SwitchQuick History

Day in and day out, the transportation industry uses in excess of one million two trailer sets with converter dollys. Some states even allow the use of three trailer sets on freeways. The current process for hooking and dropping trailers (an operation performed millions of times annually) has 49 steps, consuming an average of 32 minutes each time and causing the driver to exit and enter the cab 11 times. Did you know that this very activity (exiting and entering the cab) is the overall highest injury incident activity in the trucking industry? Additionally, at LTL freight terminal operations, manually moving dollys is the number one injury incidence activity while in the yard.

Many carriers choose 53' trailers over 28' trailers due to the cost and risk of injury during the process of dropping and hooking trailers. But should LTL carriers move freight on 28' trailer tandems or 53' vans? Carriers must consider all of the benefits and drawbacks when deciding on using tandems or vans in their line haul operation.

A device that may impact a carrier's decision on whether or not to run tandems or vans, one that actually can save a carrier millions of dollars in annual labor savings, has recently hit the market. SwitchQuick® enables LTL carriers a safer method of switching trailers by preventing the dolly from articulating when a tractor, trailer(s), and dolly are moved in a reverse direction.

SwitchQuick is a patent pending device installed on the dolly in either a single or double strut application. The SwitchQuick application prevents the dolly from articulating by bracing one or two struts from the dolly against the lead trailer with the struts extended. The time that it takes to engage and disengage SwitchQuick, single or double strut applications, will reduce the time it takes to hook and drop trailers. Both applications can save carriers one third of their current labor costs associated with switching.

SwitchQuick can also dramatically impact drivers' injuries as the trips a driver must make in and out of the tractor while switching are reduced by 50%, and the driver handles the dolly only once. Yard congestion can be reduced, gas-guzzling, tractor-idling time is reduced, and "dark" terminals no longer hold the peril they once did for drivers dropping and hooking. P+D efficiencies can also be created with SwitchQuick.

When taking the time to learn about new innovations in trucking, it quickly becomes obvious the great opportunity for carriers to conserve fuel, create operational efficiencies, and provide a safer work environment. Carriers running 28' trailers likely have already answered the question, "Tandems or Vans" as well as whether or not they'd like to save millions of dollars in new efficiencies. The question now for carriers running tandems is "single or double strut?"

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