There are half a dozen configurations of equipment a business might use to come to your location, pick a 40ft shipping container up off the ground, truck it to another location, and put it back down.
I have hired businesses and individuals to use most of these options in the past, in Hawaii, California, Illinois, Georgia, and considered all of them for different use cases and costs:
* Semi truck with tilt flatbed (e.g. Landoll)
* Semi truck with side loader (e.g. Hammar)
* Semi truck with flatbed and forklift
* Pickup truck with gooseneck/fifthwheel tilt flatbed
* Either truck with flatbed trailer and container jacks
For some reason, most of these options aren’t available in New England. I’ve called at least a hundred companies over the last couple of years. Nobody here has even heard of a side loader, let alone has one.
Why?
Yes, I know, supply and demand. Nobody needs the other options, so nobody supplies them.
A) That lack of need is coupled to the lack of supply; if someone had used a side loader or smaller truck to put the container down in the first place, they might need that same thing again to pick it back up. How did the cycle *start*?
B) I think that’s not a reasonable answer even for the “normal” container configuration. The hourly rate, and fuel cost, for a pickup truck with a tilt flatbed is usually about half that of a semi. The rate here for a semi+landoll which can handle a full container weighing 30-40klbs is $150-300/hr. The rate for a pickup+gooseneck which can handle an empty container weighing 6-8klbs might be half that, and I expect there would be demand for that if people knew it was an option and could find providers to do it.
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