Fleet decisions are usually made by looking at the busiest week. If the rounds do not fit that week, a vehicle is bought - and for the next nine months that vehicle sits on the balance sheet. With cold freight the arithmetic gets heavier still, because the purchase covers a vehicle and a refrigeration system together.
Where capacity comes from
The daily capacity of a distribution operation can be described by three multipliers: the number of vehicles, the rounds per vehicle, and the cold volume that can be carried per round. In a reefer arrangement the second and third multipliers are tied to the vehicle: if the body has to be cooled, the second round waits, and part of the volume goes to the unit and the insulation.
In the container arrangement the second and third multipliers come loose from the vehicle:
- The second round is made by swapping boxes at the depot; nobody waits for the cooling to recover, because the plates for the second set are already frozen.
- Cold volume is set by the number of boxes; the same vehicle goes out with two today and four tomorrow.
- The rest of the vehicle stays available for dry goods, so one trip does two jobs.
Fixed cost or per-trip cost
The difference between the two arrangements shows up in the shape of the cost before it shows up in the total. The table below is meant to be filled in with your own figures; the point is to show which item is booked where, without handing you a number.
| Item | Refrigerated vehicle | Container arrangement |
|---|---|---|
| Depreciation | Vehicle and refrigeration unit together, twelve months | A box in an unused month produces no cost |
| Fuel and energy | The unit runs on the road and eats fuel | Plates freeze at the depot, the tariff can be chosen |
| Maintenance | Unit servicing and days out of action | Washing and gasket care |
| Adding capacity | Another vehicle | Another box |
| Out of season | Vehicle idle or limited to dry work | Boxes on the rack, vehicle fully on dry work |
| Effect of a failure | If the cooling fails the round stops | A box does not fail; a spare box carries on |
The numbers to watch
To make the equipment decision by measurement rather than feeling, these are the indicators followed in practice:
- Trips per box per day: how often one box goes out.
- Plate turnaround: how long a set takes to be ready on the freezing rack.
- Cold volume fill per trip: does the box travel half empty or full.
- Door openings per round: the real source of cold loss.
- Idle capacity out of season: for how many months the equipment does not work.
- Equipment-caused cancellations: how many rounds were lost to a cooling failure.
Those six numbers show whether existing capacity is genuinely full before another vehicle is bought. In most operations the first finding is the same: it is not that the vehicle is short, it is that the second round never leaves.
Moving to electric vehicles
In urban fleets the move to electric sharpens this decision. A refrigeration unit eats into range on an electric vehicle; a container draws no energy from the vehicle - the plates freeze at the depot and the vehicle only carries them. That is the one arrangement that leaves the range calculation alone.
How flexibility is built with Isotec
On the container side the GEBHARDT Isotec TBX is used: nine sizes from 410 to 1500 litres, 500-700 kg payload, regimes of 0…+2 °C and -21…-25 °C, ATP and HACCP certified for food transport. Wheeled and pallet-based sizes can be mixed within the same fleet, and the EPP thermobox takes over for the smallest drops. That is where the flexibility comes from: the cold sits inside the container and, with the right configuration under the stated conditions, travels for up to 24 hours in whichever vehicle carries it.
Sizing a season properly runs through three numbers: trips per day in the peak week, cold volume per trip, and how many weeks the season lasts. Send those three to Aris Makina and we will plan together how many boxes and plate sets will carry the season, and where they are stored when it ends.
