Road Freight
Road Freight
Full truckload, partial loads and regional freight scheduled around your production and retail cycles.
Overview
Service overview
Road freight is the backbone of Northstar's network — full truckload and partial-load capacity moving on fixed and ad-hoc lanes between our regional hubs, your distribution centres and your customers' receiving docks. Loads are scheduled against your production runs, store replenishment windows or project timelines rather than a generic carrier cutoff, so a delayed production batch or a late PO doesn't automatically mean a missed truck.
Dispatch runs from a single desk across every lane we operate, which means a driver held up at a border post or a depot running behind gets rebooked onto the next available unit without you having to chase three different carriers. Rate agreements can be run per-lane, per-volume-commitment or on a spot basis depending on how steady your freight volumes are.
Every load is tracked from pickup to delivery, with exception alerts sent the moment a stop is missed or a transit time slips outside the agreed window — not after the fact.
At a Glance
- Category
- Road Freight
- Industries served
- 7
- Booking
- Quote or dispatch desk
Why It Exists
Problems this service solves
- Production or store schedules that don't line up with a generic carrier's fixed cutoff times.
- Inconsistent transit times between the same two points on different days of the week.
- No visibility into where a truck is until it's late.
- Juggling multiple regional carriers to cover one national footprint.
- Spot-rate freight costs that spike without warning during peak periods.
What's Included
Capabilities
Full truckload (FTL) and partial/part-load capacity across our regional hub network.
Fixed weekly lanes for recurring freight, plus ad-hoc booking for one-off loads.
Cross-border road freight with pre-cleared documentation on regular corridors.
Backhaul and load-consolidation options to reduce empty-running costs on return legs.
Dedicated and shared-trailer options depending on volume and confidentiality needs.
How It Runs
Process
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1
Booking confirmation
Load details, weight, dimensions and your pickup/delivery windows are logged and matched to available capacity on the lane.
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2
Route and truck assignment
Dispatch assigns a vehicle and driver based on lane, load type and any handling requirements.
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3
Pickup and load verification
Driver checks load against the manifest at origin and confirms seal/count before departure.
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4
In-transit tracking
Position and ETA are visible from your account; exception alerts fire automatically if a stop is missed.
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5
Delivery and proof of delivery
Signed POD is captured at drop-off and attached to the shipment record, available the same day.
Equipment
Vehicle & equipment requirements
- Standard curtain-side and box trailers for palletised general freight.
- Flatbeds available for building materials, steel and machinery that don't fit an enclosed trailer.
- Tail-lift equipped trucks for sites without loading-dock access.
- GVW ranges from 3.5-tonne rigid trucks for constrained urban deliveries up to full articulated combinations for line-haul lanes.
- Trailer availability is confirmed at booking — let your account manager know load type and access constraints up front to avoid a mismatch at pickup.
Coverage
Road Freight operates across our regional hub network. See depot locations, lane coverage and transit estimates on the coverage map.
Who Uses This
Industries served
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Full truckload (FTL) reserves an entire trailer for your freight only. Partial-load consolidates your shipment with other loads travelling the same lane, which usually costs less but adds one or two stops to the route.
Yes — recurring freight on the same lane can be set up as a standing weekly booking with a locked rate, so you're not re-negotiating or re-booking every time.
We run regular cross-border lanes with pre-cleared documentation on established corridors; ad-hoc cross-border bookings are handled through Freight Forwarding for the customs leg.
Also Consider
Related services
Express & Courier
Time-critical parcels and documents moved same-day and next-day, with live proof of delivery.
Warehousing
Bonded and non-bonded storage, pick-and-pack and inventory visibility across our hub network.
Freight Forwarding
End-to-end customs, documentation and multimodal coordination for import and export cargo.
Ready to Ship
Move your next Road Freight shipment with Northstar.
Get a rate in minutes, or talk to a dispatch coordinator about a recurring contract.