Follow us
Last updated: September 2026
Load planning is the process of deciding which orders go on which truck, how they are arranged inside the trailer, and in what sequence they ship, so every load is as full, safe and legal as it can be. Done well, it cuts the number of trucks you need, reduces empty miles, and gives your carriers loads they actually want to haul.
This guide explains what load planning is, the three ways it is done, the numbers every planner works against, the steps of a good load plan, and where software fits. It is written for shippers and the transportation teams that plan freight for them, though most of it applies to carriers too.
Load planning is the part of transportation management that happens between "we have orders to ship" and "the truck is booked." A load planner groups orders into shipments, matches each shipment to the right trailer type, decides how the freight is placed inside the trailer, and sets the pickup and delivery sequence. The goal is simple: move the same freight with fewer trucks, without damage, and without breaking weight or hours-of-service rules.
People sometimes use "load planning" and "load optimization" to mean the same thing. They are close, but not identical. Load planning is the whole process. Load optimization is the math inside it: the part where you squeeze the most cube and weight out of each trailer. You can plan loads without optimizing them (many teams still do it in spreadsheets), but you cannot optimize loads without a plan.
Because trucks are expensive whether they are full or not. The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) puts the average cost of running a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, the highest figure in the history of its annual report, and reports that 16.5% of non-tank miles were run empty. Every partial trailer and every deadhead mile is paid for by someone, and for shippers that cost shows up in contract rates, spot quotes and tender rejections.
Good load planning attacks that waste from the shipper's side:
Source for the cost and empty-mile figures: ATRI, "An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2026 Update" (https://truckingresearch.org/2026/07/new-atri-report-details-accelerating-costs-and-low-profitability-despite-cuts/).
Every load plan is limited by one of two things: the trailer runs out of space, or it runs out of legal weight. Which limit you hit first decides how you plan.
Used for light, bulky freight such as packaged consumer goods, paper products, furniture and foam. The trailer fills up long before it reaches the weight limit, so the planner works on stacking, pallet orientation and cube utilization. Pinwheeling pallets (turning alternate pallets 90 degrees) and double-stacking where the freight allows are the standard tools.
Used for dense freight such as beverages, canned goods, metals, building materials and machinery. The trailer hits its legal weight with floor space to spare, so the planner works on axle weight distribution rather than cube. Putting heavy pallets over the axles and balancing front to back keeps the truck legal at the scale.
Most real-world loads are mixed: some heavy pallets, some light, multiple stops, maybe more than one customer. This is where planning gets hard and where software earns its keep. The planner has to respect weight, cube, stop sequence (last stop loaded first), stacking rules and any product incompatibilities at the same time.
These are the constraints for a standard 53-foot dry van in the United States. Know them by heart and half of load planning becomes arithmetic.
Sources: Hale Trailer, "Dry Van Dimensions & Capacities" (https://haletrailer.com/blog/dry-van-dimensions-capacities/) and the Federal Highway Administration's federal size and weight limits.
Whether you plan in a transportation management system (TMS), in dedicated load planning software, or in a spreadsheet, the sequence is the same.
Load optimization is the calculation layer inside load planning. It takes a set of orders and a set of constraints (weight, cube, axle limits, stacking rules, stop sequence) and finds the arrangement that uses the fewest trailers or the least cost. Humans can do it for simple loads. Software does it for everything else, because the number of possible arrangements grows faster than anyone can check by hand.
In practice, load optimization tools do three things a spreadsheet cannot: build a 3D placement plan for the trailer, test thousands of order combinations in seconds, and re-plan instantly when an order changes. If your team plans more than a few dozen truckloads a week, or ships mixed freight, the payback is usually quick. We cover the software side in detail in our guide to load planning software.
This is the part most load planning guides leave out. A load plan is only as good as the truck that shows up to move it, and that truck comes from your procurement strategy.
Emerge is a freight procurement platform for shippers, not a load planning tool. Load planning decides what the truck carries. Procurement decides which truck, at what rate, with what reliability. The shippers who get the most out of both are the ones who let the two teams see each other's data.
Load planning in logistics is the process of grouping orders into shipments, assigning each shipment to the right trailer, arranging the freight inside it, and sequencing pickups and deliveries. Its purpose is to move freight with the fewest trucks possible while staying safe, legal and on time.
A load planner reviews the orders ready to ship, decides how to combine them into loads, checks each load against weight and space limits, sets the stop sequence, and hands the finished load to the carrier or the procurement team for tendering. In larger shippers the role sits inside the transportation or logistics department. In smaller ones it is often part of a customer service or warehouse manager's job.
Load planning decides what goes on the truck and how it is arranged. Route planning decides the path the truck takes between stops. They overlap on multi-stop loads, where the stop order affects both the loading sequence and the route, but they are separate problems with separate tools.
Twenty-six standard 48 by 40 inch pallets fit on the floor of a 53-foot dry van when loaded straight, and up to 30 when alternate pallets are turned sideways (pinwheeled). Stacking can double that count if the freight can support it and the total stays under the legal weight.
The federal limit is 80,000 lbs gross, which usually leaves 44,000 to 45,000 lbs for cargo. Individual axle limits also apply: 20,000 lbs on a single axle and 34,000 lbs on a tandem. Some states allow more on specific roads with permits.
If you ship a handful of full truckloads a week with simple freight, a spreadsheet and a good planner are enough. If you ship mixed freight, run multi-stop loads, or plan more than a few dozen loads a week, software pays for itself quickly by finding consolidations a person would miss and by re-planning when orders change.
Load planning is where a shipper's transportation spend is really decided. Fill the trailer, keep it legal, sequence it properly, and hand it to a carrier who wants it. Then look at what happened and plan the next one better. If you want to see how the procurement side can keep up with a good load plan, book a demo with Emerge.
SOC 2 Type II