Plastic Pallets Along I-75

I-75 from end to end

It carries Florida produce north and Michigan auto parts south, so pallets travel both ways on one road. It runs from Miami, Florida to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, by way of Tampa, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Cincinnati, Dayton and Detroit.

States that list I-75 among their main Interstates: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee. A pallet that rides I-75 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 136,133 warehousing jobs, led by Atlanta (49,050) and Detroit (30,083). That is 7.2 percent of the US trade on one road.

What the table means

Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell is the largest warehousing metro on I-75 in this table, with 49,050 jobs, 36.0 percent of the route total. Motor vehicle parts manufacturing is the largest trade listed along it, with 77,073 jobs (partial) in the route's metros. Together the metros hold 7.2 percent of US private warehousing jobs, about one in every 14.

Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Michigan list I-75 among their main Interstates, so the route's metros sit inside those states' wider warehousing trade.

Trades that ship along it

In Interstate 75, motor vehicle parts manufacturing employs 77,073 (a partial count). Suppliers weigh the dynamic rating against the way parts move, and ask whether the pallet nests when it comes back empty. It tends to lean on heavy-duty stackable pallets, nestable on the empty return, usually in 48 x 45 in or 48 x 40 in, and to ask about the dynamic load, since parts travel on forklifts and conveyors all day.

The empty return, mile by mile

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 227 route warehouse sites (jobs ÷ 600, rounded) in I-75 sent back 500 empty pallets in a week, that would be 113,500 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

2-way entry

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

Location quotient

A place's share of employment in a trade divided by the national share. Above 1 means the trade is more concentrated there than average.

Pallet jack

A hand or powered truck with two forks, used to move a pallet short distances.

Open deck

A deck with slots or a grid, which drains water, sheds dust and weighs less than a solid one.

Cruciform base

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

Stretch wrap

Elastic film wound around a loaded pallet to hold the load together.

QCEW

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a Bureau of Labor Statistics count of jobs and establishments taken from unemployment insurance records.

Last mile

The final leg of a delivery, from a local depot to the customer.

Intermodal

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

UL

Underwriters Laboratories, a safety testing body that publishes fire test standards, including one for storage pallets.

Cube utilisation

How well loaded freight fills the volume of a trailer or container. Taller or wider-than-floor pallets waste cube.

Interstate corridor

A freight route named for its highway, together with the metros along it.