With the holidays rolling around, shippers are about to hit the busiest stretch of the year. Demand spikes, trucks get harder to find, and freight that moved easily in September suddenly needs a plan. If you ship refrigerated freight, it's a good time to ask: should I keep booking loads one at a time, or lock in a dedicated fleet?
There's no one right answer. Over-the-road (OTR) and dedicated trucking solve different problems, and plenty of shippers use both. Here's how they compare, and how to tell which one fits your freight.
What is OTR trucking?
OTR (over-the-road) trucking is load-by-load freight. You tender a shipment, a carrier picks it up, and the truck moves on to its next load once yours is delivered. You pay for the loads you ship and nothing more.
OTR works well when:
Your volume goes up and down week to week
Your lanes change, or you ship to new destinations often
You have seasonal spikes you don't want to staff for year-round
You want flexibility more than guaranteed capacity
The trade-off is that capacity isn't reserved for you. When the market tightens, like it does every holiday season, available trucks get harder to find and rates can climb.
What is dedicated trucking?
Dedicated trucking means a carrier sets aside trucks and trailers to run your freight on a set route and schedule. That capacity is reserved for you alone. It isn't shared with other shippers or pulled away when a better-paying load comes along.
With dedicated, you get:
A dedicated route built around your pickup and delivery points
Dedicated equipment that only hauls your freight
A dedicated schedule that runs on your timeline
Reserved capacity, so trucks are there when you need them, even in tight markets
The trade-off is commitment. Dedicated makes the most sense when you have steady, predictable volume to keep those trucks busy.
Signs you're ready for dedicated
If a few of these sound familiar, it may be time to look at a dedicated fleet:
You ship the same lanes every week. Steady volume between the same points is exactly what dedicated is built for.
You scramble for trucks during peak season. Reserved capacity means you're not competing with everyone else for the same trucks.
Your delivery windows are tight. A set schedule makes on-time pickups and deliveries easier to count on.
Your freight needs specific equipment. Temperature-controlled loads need trailers you can trust to hold the right temperature, every time.
You're spending too much time booking loads. Dedicated takes the week-to-week tendering off your plate.
You don't have to pick just one, either. Many shippers run their core lanes dedicated and use OTR for everything else.
How Navajo Express does both
At Navajo Express, we run OTR and dedicated refrigerated freight from our home base in Denver, where the same family has run the company for 45 years.
OTR refrigerated: We haul reefer freight out of Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa to all lower 48 states. With 750 trucks and 1,900 reefer trailers that hold anywhere from -10°F to 60°F and are GPS tracked, we have the capacity to keep your temperature-sensitive freight moving.
Digby Dedicated: Our dedicated service, named after our founding family, gives you a dedicated route, dedicated equipment, a dedicated schedule, and capacity reserved for your freight alone. We typically run 53' reefers, but we can set up other configurations. We'll build dedicated wherever your freight needs it.
Not sure which one fits? Tell us about your lanes and volume, and we'll help you figure it out. Contact our team to get started.