Once understood the different structures of terrestrial transport trucks, it is appropriate to know the different truck types for terrestrial load transport.
For this purpose, there are load optimisation softwares as PDS (Pallet Design System) for example. This software helps to choose the optimal pallet configuration by indicating the type, size and style of the pallet. Then, it is needed to specify the dimensions and the placement of each component and also the materials which are loaded in the pallet. PDS calculates both every loading pattern for a layer and the carbon footprint for each possible pallet configuration.
This software also shows the loading pattern of several cargo container layers and the sizes and total weight of each load unit. There are other softwares as for example TOPS Pro. The pallet configurator is the most used function of this software. It helps the engineers to determine the optimous way to load boxes in a platform and generates different pallet loading patterns. This way, users can choose the most suitable configuration involving different parameters as for example cubic efficency, load stability or inventory management.