The transfer of large payloads of waste between locations can be both a challenge and an opportunity for haulers. Making the right trailer purchase factors into safety and productivity, evolving regulatory guidelines, and long-term success.
By Patrick McGee

Trailers are designed to maximize your payload while following national, provincial and state weight regulations. Below, we will talk about why this is important and how it can streamline your business.

Waste Disposal Challenges
Very few people consider the last step of the journey in residual waste and recycling. Potential landfill sites are becoming increasingly difficult to find. The cost, along with environmental regulations, makes them even more difficult to open. For these reasons, residual waste that cannot be readily recycled needs to be commuted to its final destination.

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Deloupe has made optimal use of new types of steel in order to create a waste transfer semi-trailer that has the similar load capacity as aluminum trailers.
Photos courtesy of Joe Johnson Equipment.

These destinations are often a few hundred miles away, which means it is impractical for route collection vehicles to transport this waste. This leaves two basic options: waste can be transported by rail or by waste transfer trailers.
Since rail has inherent limitations due to infrastructure, transfer trailers are typically the only option. Waste accumulated from route collection is dumped at a transfer station and then loaded into transfer trailers. These waste transfer trailers have an average length of up to 53’giving them the advantage of being able to carry a large volume.

North American Payload Challenges
Depending on the jurisdiction, weight regulations and axle configurations, payloads vary widely. Based on these challenges, trailer manufacturers have used innovative engineering strategies to maximize payloads in each jurisdiction.

Canada
Canadian tractor-trailer weight limits are set by each province, however, there are certain configurations covered under regional agreements. Each province governs semi-truck weight loads by specifying the number of axles and configuration of each truck. From there, these combinations give a maximum weight specification that must be followed.

United States
In the U.S., there is a federal set of standards that specify ‘minimum maximum’ loads that are allowed on federal highways. These include interstates and national highways. On these roads, each truck driver must follow a standard set of rules that are common throughout the country. Some states allow for additional multi-axle configurations, but these vary state-to-state.
In addition to weight limits, bridge laws restrict the spacing and weight of axle groupings in both Canada and the U.S. The bridge formula helps determine the weight to axle ratio when figuring out how much weight each truck can safely carry.

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Optimized rugged design allowing for a superior volume-weight ratio.

Why Weight Limits Exist
Critical safety issues are the key factor behind limiting the gross weight, axle weights and weight distribution across the length of a truck, along with the weight distribution per axle:
• Heavy weights capacity on secondary roads can lead to ruts, cracks, and potholes in the road surface as the road bed was not engineered to handle it.
• Structural damage can occur to bridges if they were not engineered for it. Overloading a truck’s steering axle can cause ‘heavy steering’, which can cause the truck to reduce its reaction to steering input.
• Not enough weight on the truck’s steering axle can lead to loss of control, especially under low traction conditions.
• Unbalanced weight distribution between a tractor drive tires and trailer tandems can lead to reduced traction and could increase the risk of jackknifing.
• A ‘pendulum effect’, which creates a swaying of the back of the trailer, is caused by too much weight near the back of the trailer. This can also be responsible for jackknifing under low traction conditions.

Loss of control of a truck can happen due to overloading the suspension system. It can also cause serious damage to the truck’s suspension system.
Ultimately, the transfer of large payloads of waste between locations can be both a challenge and an opportunity for haulers. Gaining a greater understanding of how heavily purchasing the right trailer can factor into addressing both safety and productivity concerns will increasingly factor in to the long term success of these operators, and how to work within regulatory guidelines as they evolve. | WA

Patrick McGee is Director of Sales, Joe Johnson Equipment (JJE), Canada’s largest and one of North America’s leading infrastructure-maintenance equipment suppliers. JJE proudly serves municipalities, contractors, haulers and industrial companies in Canada and the U.S. JJE has a long-standing reputation for distributing industry-leading products through its national branch network with a keen focus on customer support. For more information, call (800) 263-1262 or visit www.jjei.com.

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