When a refrigerated vehicle is bought, usually one number is examined: the purchase price. That number is a small share of what will be paid across the vehicle's life, and that is why the decision comes out wrong. The worksheet below is meant to be filled in with your own figures.
Group one: ownership items
These arise whether the vehicle works or not:
- Depreciation: the vehicle and the refrigeration unit wearing out separately.
- Financing: the cost of the loan or lease.
- Insurance: premiums for a vehicle with a refrigeration unit are usually assessed separately.
- Taxes, inspection and mandatory documents.
- Idle time out of season: how many months the vehicle earns nothing.
Group two: operating items
- The vehicle's fuel.
- The unit's separate consumption: on bodies up to 5 metres the compressor is belt-driven from the vehicle engine, and on bodies between 5 and 13.60 metres the unit runs its own diesel engine. Either way a separate line enters the fuel account.
- Unit servicing, refrigerant and filter work.
- Routine vehicle maintenance and tyres.
- Driver and route time.
Group three: the invisible items
This is the group most often skipped in budgets, and it is usually where the difference is made:
- Workshop days: the round that stops while the unit is being serviced, and the vehicle hired to cover it.
- Product and customer losses when the cooling fails.
- Lost volume and payload: the unit and the insulation take space and carrying capacity from the body.
- Cold escaping at every door opening: the Turkish Ministry of Education module states that cold air flows out when the door opens and the evaporator fan keeps blowing chilled air outside. On a twenty-drop round that is fuel burned for nothing.
- The vehicle's inability to return to dry work: a vehicle committed to refrigeration cannot be put on other jobs.
Cost per trip
The number the decision needs is not the annual total but the cost per trip:
Cost per trip = (annual total of ownership + operating + loss items) ÷ trips per year
The harshest consequence of that formula is this: as the number of trips falls, unit cost jumps. A vehicle running two trips a day and one running two trips a week have the same list of items and nowhere near the same unit cost. In seasonal work that difference alone can be the reason the investment never pays back.
The worksheet
| Item | Annual amount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Depreciation (vehicle) | Over how many years | |
| Depreciation (refrigeration unit) | The unit's life is shorter than the vehicle's | |
| Financing | Loan or lease interest | |
| Insurance | ||
| Taxes, inspection, documents | ||
| Fuel (vehicle) | Annual kilometres | |
| Fuel or energy (unit) | Unit running hours | |
| Maintenance (vehicle + unit) | ||
| Tyres | ||
| Driver | ||
| Loss from workshop days | Days, daily revenue | |
| Product loss from failures | ||
| Lost volume and payload | What cannot be carried per trip | |
| Idle time out of season | Months | |
| Trips per year | The divisor |
How the worksheet changes with containers
In the container arrangement most of group one disappears: the vehicle stays standard, there is no unit, and out of season the boxes create no cost. In group two the unit's share of fuel falls and is replaced by depot energy for freezing the plates - energy whose tariff can be chosen. In group three, workshop days, failures and escaping cold are largely closed off.
In exchange, the container arrangement adds a new item: freezing-rack capacity, the number of plate sets and washing the boxes. An honest comparison writes that item into the table too.
| Where it is booked | Refrigerated vehicle | Container arrangement |
|---|---|---|
| Cooling equipment | Tied to the vehicle, twelve months | Tied to the box, to the trip it is used on |
| Energy | Fuel on the road | Electricity at the depot, tariff can be chosen |
| Failure risk | The round stops | Carry on with a spare box |
| Adding capacity | Another vehicle | Another box |
| Additional item | - | Freezing rack, plate sets, washing |
Getting to your own number
Once the worksheet is filled in, one number matters: cost per trip. Applying both arrangements to the same route and comparing that number ends the brand argument. Send Aris Makina your route, your annual trip count and your target temperature, and we will fill in the container side with you so it can sit next to your own reefer calculation.
