Plastic Pallets Along I-40

I-40 from end to end

It is a southern transcontinental truck road, crossing the Mississippi at Memphis. It runs from Barstow, California to Wilmington, North Carolina, by way of Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville.

States that list I-40 among their main Interstates: Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee. A pallet that rides I-40 loaded rides it back empty, and the length of that haul is what a nestable's short stack pays for.

Metros on the route

Together the route's metros hold 57,377 warehousing jobs, led by Memphis (27,742) and Nashville (19,548). That is 3 percent of the US trade on one road.

What the table means

Memphis is the largest warehousing metro on I-40 in this table, with 27,742 jobs, 48.4 percent of the route total. Warehousing and storage is the largest trade listed along it, with 57,377 jobs (partial) in the route's metros. Together the metros hold 3 percent of US private warehousing jobs, about one in every 33.

Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico and North Carolina list I-40 among their main Interstates, so the route's metros sit inside those states' wider warehousing trade.

Trades that ship along it

In Interstate 40, warehousing and storage employs 57,377 (a partial count). Most of the demand is for general pallets in the common footprint, with the choice split between rack service and block stacking. It tends to lean on rackable where the pallet lives on beams, stackable for block stacking, nestable for the empties that go back, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the racking load, and the beam span it was rated on.

The empty return, mile by mile

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 96 route warehouse sites (jobs ÷ 600, rounded) in I-40 sent back 800 empty pallets in a week, that would be 76,800 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Words on this page

Dock door

The opening where a trailer backs to a building so pallets can be loaded and unloaded.

Reefer

A refrigerated trailer or container.

Slip sheet

A thin sheet of plastic or fibreboard used under a load in place of a pallet, handled by a push-pull attachment.

2-way entry

A pallet that can be lifted from only two opposite sides.

RFID tag

A small radio tag moulded into or attached to a pallet so readers can track it through a plant or a loop.

3PL

A third-party logistics company that stores and ships goods for other businesses.

Cruciform base

A base shaped like a plus sign under the pallet, which gives a stable footprint and slides well on conveyors.

One-way pallet

A light pallet built to carry cargo to a destination and stay there, often used in export.

Closed deck

A solid deck that keeps small items and torn bags from falling through and wipes clean on top.

ZIP Code Business Patterns

A Census Bureau series that counts establishments by ZIP code and industry.

Intermodal

Freight that changes between truck, rail and ship in the same container.

Pallet pooling

A rental model where a company owns the pallets and moves them between customers, instead of each customer buying its own.