Hub and spoke isa network of facilities that allow truckload freight to move long distances with single drivers. Tractors are shared amongst multiple customers to improve utilization and reduce cost. Hubs are typically positioned no more than 300 miles apart from one another. Drivers meet at a mid-point and exchange trailers then return to their originating hubs. This allows them to return home each day while the freight still gets to its next location.
Timely shipments can make all the difference for manufacturing and retail-related industries. Yet the speed of shipments must be balanced with affordability.
To deliver products in the most cost-effective and timely means possible, forward-thinking logistics companies are embracing hub-and-spoke models, where connections are arranged like a wheel. Freight traffic moves along spokes connected to a central hub. This approach efficiently moves products out of strategically located distribution centers and shortens travel time.
As an industry leader, Penske Logistics puts its own hub-and-spoke model into action for customers. Penske experts optimize the model to help you to speed up deliveries, increase efficiency, reduce costs and keep products moving.
As part of the hub-and-spoke model, hubs are positioned no more than 300 miles apart from one another. Here’s how it works:
Driver A leaves from his origin hub and meets Driver B at a switching point. They then exchange trailers. And while Driver B continues to the next switching point, Driver A heads back to his originating hub. This sequence of events keeps products in continuous motion and allows drivers to return home each night.
The hub-and-spoke model creates numerous benefits, including:
Fast and efficient delivery doesn’t have to mean high costs. By partnering with Penske and leveraging our hub-and-spoke system, you can strategically use your transportation resources and steer a course toward efficiency.
A hub-and-spoke system is a distribution network with a centralized hub connected to multiple surrounding lanes, or spokes, similar to a wheel. A company can rely on just one central hub-and-spoke system or utilize multiple hub-and-spoke systems within its network to get everything where it needs to go efficiently and safely. When utilizing hub-and-spoke systems within a network, a company may also use relay driving for efficiency and to avoid driver burnout.
Hub-and-spoke models work similarly to airlines – planes take off from a central location and fly to multiple locations.
Hub-and-spoke is a distribution method that utilizes a centralized hub. A company’s products originate from this hub or are sent to the hub for customer distribution. From the hub, products travel outward to smaller locations for further processing or distribution.
This system allows a company to utilize fewer trucks and fewer overall transportation routes. Instead, remaining vehicles may run multiple routes, transporting increased loads by picking up and dropping off cargo at various places or “spokes” of the wheel.
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