Guide
Machinery transport cost: what actually sets the price
Updated
Nobody sells machinery transport by the mile, because the miles are the cheap part. Here is what the price is really made of, and how to give a haulier enough to quote firmly the first time.
The four numbers, then everything else
Weight, length, width and height decide the trailer and the route. Height causes more trouble than the other three combined, because the figure that matters is the loaded travelling height: the machine's own height plus the deck it sits on. That is why a haulier will ask which trailer the machine has travelled on before, and why an extra 100mm can turn a straightforward job into a different trailer or a different route.
Single machines and full relocations
- Single machine move
- One collection, one delivery, priced around the trailer, the loading method and access at each end. The variables are few enough that a firm price is normal once the numbers are confirmed.
- Multiple machines
- Priced as a programme rather than as a set of single moves. Sequencing matters: the order machines leave decides which ones can still be reached with a forklift, and that alone can save days.
- Factory or workshop relocation
- Transport is one line among several: decommissioning, disconnection, lifting, sequencing, storage where the new site is not ready, positioning and recommissioning. Get each priced separately, then decide who holds overall responsibility for the programme.
How to get comparable quotes
- Send the same information to everyone: the four numbers, photographs of the machine, photographs of both ends including the approach, and the date window.
- State what you can do yourself. A forklift on site or a driver who can track the machine on removes cost, but only if the haulier knows about it in advance.
- Ask what is included at each end: loading, unloading, positioning, and any waiting time allowance.
- Ask for the standing time rate. It is the most common variation on machinery work and the easiest to agree in advance.
- Ask about insurance in transit: what cover the operator carries and what the limit is. Ask the question, read the answer, and take your own advice on whether it is adequate. This site cannot advise you on insurance.
Where machinery moves overrun
- The machine was measured without its attachments. Buckets, booms, guarding and platforms all count.
- The new site was not ready. Floor not cured, plinth not poured, doorway not yet widened, and a crane on hire by the hour outside.
- The lifting points were assumed. Machines without documented lifting points need slinging worked out on site, which takes time and sometimes a different crane.
- It turned out to be oversize. A machine over the abnormal thresholds brings a notification regime and a different kind of operator, so flag anything unusually wide, long or heavy at enquiry stage rather than on the day.
If several machines are moving, sequence the enquiry the way you will sequence the move: what leaves first, what still needs to be reachable afterwards, and what has to be running again first at the new site. Hauliers price a thought-through sequence far more keenly than a list.