A demountable body is a type of truck body that is commonly used by the distribution industry. These bodies (usually a box body) are used to enable the truck to do more work during the permitted driving hours for the driver.
Description[]
The Body is mounted on a fame and fitted with legs to stand it on when not in transit on the truck. The truck drops empty units (often 2) at the depot and picks up 2 full units then drives the units to the customer and in some case drops them a picks up 2 empties or in other cases drives part of the delivery route and parks the trailer and one unit and then goes int town an delivers to the shops were the box is unloaded at one or more drops. the driver then returns to the trailer & swaps boxes and delivers the contents before returning to the depot to get a new pair. Often the distribution operation works several shifts 24 hours a day continually filling boxes to restock shops over night when journey times are less and restrictions on trucks entering some town centres are lifted.
The ability to switch boxes has several other advantages; better utilisation of the truck and boxes, ability to re assign to another driver if traffic delays a vehicle or it breakes down.
The Online supermarket Ocado uses a smaller scale system with refrigerated units to distribute to the customers from it warehouses. The unit are moved by truck in groups to a local depot and transfered to the smaller local delivery van to do the drops in tight streets of the housing estates, which are inaccessible to large lorries.
Another small scale version was used by the telephone company BT in the UK for there service engineers vehicles. A lot of these mobile workshop units have been sold off and are now finding anew use as garden sheds or as camper conversions to living units by Steam engine owners as they can be mounted on the front or back of a low loader on a temporary basis as accommodation at steam rallies.
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Manufacturers[]
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See also[]
- Special Purpose Trucks
- ISO Containers - Shipping containers usually moved by tractor unit and Semi-trailer for bulk goods.
- DROPS System - system used by the military
- Hook-lift system
References / sources[]
External links[]
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