Auto Trader California 
The world keeps moving.
Inspire of the challenges that so many of us are facing when it comes to the economy and the threat to our health, it is important to note that the trucking industry keeps consumer goods moving across the country and into the stores where these items are often snatched up as soon as they arrive. From pharmaceuticals to frozen and refrigerated foods, the delivery of the items that end up in hospitals, our kitchens, and, ultimately, our bodies, rely on a complicated logistical network. For this reason, it may come as no surprise that both new and used temperature controlled trailer resources are in high demand. With the used Thermo King refrigeration units that may have sat vacant for months pushed into action, trucking companies of all size are as busy as they have ever been.
Coordinating schedules of drivers and drop-offs so that carrier reefer units and other trailer resources are on the road nearly 24/7, logistics engineers have been working overtime to make sure that the products that both hospitals and consumers need are available.
Temperature Controlled Trailer Resources Play Important Roles in the Economy of the Nation
There has always been a segment of the country’s population that has known the importance of the trucking industry, but when personal protection equipment, medications, and, yes, even toilet paper and frozen foods were in short supply, the entire country noticed. Children were holding signs thanking big rig drivers and fast food workers were hand delivering meals to trucks that could not find any open sit down restaurants. As the nation watched the logistics of getting vanishing and difficult to find supplies to the shelves of stores and hospitals alike, a new sense of what an essential worker became apparent.
Even if you are new to the realization about how important these drivers are to the lives we all live, consider this list of facts and figures about the trucking industry, especially the resources that are used to deliver temperature reliant goods, and the role that it plays in the economy:
- The big name cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, New York/New Jersey, Seattle/Tacoma, and Savannah are the he top five U.S. ports, but every small town and hamlet across the nation benefits from the goods that enter the country through these ports.
- The average size of a reefer trailer is between 28 and 53 feet in length and no more than 13.5 feet in height. Learning to navigate these large trailers and check to make sure that all of the temperature controls are working properly are just tow of the main jobs that drivers are tasked with.
- As many as Up to 500,000 reefer trailers are currently in operation in the U.S., and with the maximum weight a reefer trailer can carry being 44,000 pounds, it is easy to see the literal size of this industry..
- Approximately 40,000 refrigerated trailers were ordered in the U.S. in January 2018, according to FTR Transportation Intelligence. The number of these trailers and other kinds of trailer resources that have been put into service in the last six months, however, mean that the sales of just two years ago look small.
- The temperature range of a refrigerated trailer is -20 degrees to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Just five years ago in 2015, the global refrigerated market was valued at just over $5 billion. By 2022, however, that number was expected to increase by another $2 billion. With the current pandemic, there are many experts who predict that number will grow even higher.
The decision makers behind the deliveries of so many of the products that we depend on may have been unsung heroes in the past, but today more people are paying attention to small time truck and trailer drivers and the many people in 30s and 40s who play essential roles in the logistics of the nation. And while the truck drivers are the visible part of this system, it is important to note that often it is someone in an office who has to plan weeks and months ahead to make sure that items reach their destinations on time. Keeping moving is the name of the game.
