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Trucks help put out fires, keep our neighbourhoods clean, and even serve us food. They are a vital part of the construction, mining and agricultural industries. And from the groceries you buy to your furniture, electronic equipment and the bricks that built your house, almost everything has been transported by a truck.
This article will take you through all the different types of trucks you’re likely to pass by on the highway, street or anywhere else. And if you’re thinking of hiring a truck, this list should help you figure out the best one for your needs!
Table Of Contents
27 Types Of Trucks: The Ultimate List
We’ve got a lot of trucks to get through, so let’s dive in! Keep reading to learn about all the different lorry types out there. And if you’re not sure what counts as a truck or lorry in the first place, find out here.
General Freight And Transportation
These four varieties are the most common truck types used for general freight, transporting a wide range of consumer goods as well as industrial equipment and materials.
1. Box Truck
A box truck is a type of rigid truck with an enclosed cargo area made of hard sides (metal). It features a cargo section and driver’s cab attached to one frame, but these are two separate sections. Box trucks are frequently used for commercial deliveries of dry goods, consumer products, electronics, machine parts or beverages.
Find out about SDVH’s box truck hire options.
2. Curtain-Side Truck
A curtain-sider lorry or tautliner truck is similar to a box truck, except that one or both sides can be accessed via canvas curtains on rails. This allows for efficient loading and unloading, while protecting the cargo from the elements. Curtainsiders are great for carrying large goods that require protection from rain or sun. A subtype is the Euroliner, which also features a retractable roof, so goods can be loaded from above.
Click here to see all the curtain-sider vehicles we have for hire.
3. Tipper Truck
A tipper or dump truck features a rear platform that can be raised at its front end (or sides), enabling the load to be released automatically. Dump trucks are used to transport loose material like sand, asphalt or gravel. They are a mainstay of the construction industry and are also used in agriculture, forestry and landscaping to transport things like grain, wood chips and soil.
If you’re looking to hire a dump truck, check out our tipper truck hire selection.
4. Dropside Truck
Dropside trucks are also designed for easy loading and unloading, featuring short folding sides that drop down via a hinge. Loading heavy goods is thus much easier than in a box truck, while the sides help retain the cargo. Dropside trucks tend to be heavy-duty trucks and, thus, an ideal way to transport things like bricks, paving and bags of cement.
5. Flatbed Truck
A flatbed lorry is a truck with completely flat trailers and no sides or roof. The cargo is secured to the trailer with a system of straps. It’s ideal for transporting heavy loads that don’t require protection from the elements. Flatbed lorries are typically very heavy-duty vehicles and thus can carry bulky building materials, hay bales, scrap metal or large beams.
Specialised Freight And Transportation
These specialised trucks are designed to carry specific items and do particular tasks, so they have modifications that help them do so.
6. Livestock Trucks
Livestock trucks are exactly what they sound like – trucks that carry livestock animals! Most feature small openings so the animals can get daylight and air. They also usually have a back panel that opens down and becomes a ramp.
Livestock trucks can vary depending on the animals they transport, and some are even fitted with equipment to help them stay in place and eat during their journey.
7. Logging Trucks
Logging trucks are flatbed trucks designed to carry large amounts of timber. They feature either integrated flatbeds, discrete trailers or a tractor unit with a doilied trailer behind it. Some logging trucks are designed to carry timber over rough ground after the trees are felled, while others transport it short distances and long distances across highways and roads.
8. Tanker Trucks
Tankers are used to transport liquid or liquefied material, whether oil, fuel, water, liquid chemicals or fertilisers. They feature trailers with large insulated and pressurised containers attached. Tankers are difficult to drive because they have a high centre of gravity, and extreme caution is essential.
9. Refrigerated Trucks
Refrigerated trucks are used for commercial deliveries of food products and perishable goods, such as fruit, meat, dairy and medicine. They are fitted with cooling equipment to keep the goods fresh while they’re being transported. These days, most refrigerated trucks feature advanced cooling systems powered by diesel, as well as fans that direct the air around the cargo space.
‘Lorry’ and ‘truck’ tend to be used interchangeably but are not exactly the same. Check out the difference between them in our blog post.
10. Heavy Hauler Trucks
A heavy hauler is a very large heavy-duty truck with a massive load capacity used to transport oversized loads. These trucks are too large for road travel without an escort vehicle and a special permit. They may transport industrial machinery, farming equipment or oversized construction materials. Any load whose weight exceeds 25,000 kg is considered a heavy haul shipment, while some can carry close to 100 tons!
11. Concrete Mixer Trucks
Concrete mixer trucks are designed for the purpose of mixing concrete and depositing it where it needs to go. They have concrete mixers attached to their trailers, which mix cement and water continuously. The constant motion of the mixer allows the cement to maintain its liquid state, and it is then discharged from the rear when needed.
12. Car Transporters
Car transporters are also very self-explanatory – they are trucks used for transporting cars! They feature specialised storage equipment with the capacity to hold multiple cars in place while they’re being transported. Flatbed lorries can also be used to carry cars, but they use loaders or winches to load the vehicles, while car transporters make use of ramps that the vehicles must drive onto.
Utility Trucks And Specialised Vehicles
These lorry types are specialist vehicles used for various utility functions. These are the vehicles we rely on to keep our communities clean and safe, among other things.
13. Fire Trucks
These iconic and life-saving trucks are built to carry the equipment needed to put out a fire, including a hose, sirens and automatic lifting ladders. They also require enough cargo space to carry a crew of firemen and their breathing apparatuses and oxygen containers. Fire trucks can carry a lot of water and can also access water by connecting to fire hydrants.
14. Garbage Trucks
Garbage trucks are another familiar sight and an essential service for keeping our communities clean. These trucks are designed to collect municipal waste and transport it to a treatment facility. They operate via a combination of mechanical, electrical and hydraulic systems to pick up the garbage and compact it so they can collect an entire neighbourhood’s waste in one day.
15. Truck-Mounted Cranes
Trucks that carry cranes are essential in the construction industry. They feature a boom mounted onto the truck’s chassis and usually have two operating cabs – one to drive the truck and one to operate the crane. Truck cranes are used to lift large objects or heavy loads on construction sites, as well as to transport various cherry picker types.
They are very useful as the truck can bring the crane where it needs to be without a lengthy setup process.
16. Tow Trucks (Recovery Trucks)
A tow truck is used to tow a vehicle that has broken down, been in an accident, is wrongly parked or is otherwise indisposed. It is either used because the vehicle cannot drive itself or because it is being forcibly removed. Tow trucks are equipped with a special towing mechanism, which could either be a boom and winch or a wheel-lift system. Some recovery trucks may also be known as car transporters, especially those that don’t tow but put whole vehicles on them.
17. Drilling Trucks
Drilling trucks or mobile drilling rigs are specialised trucks with an integrated drilling rig used to drill for water, oil and gas. Usually, the drilling rig is mounted directly onto the truck’s chassis. Drilling trucks allow a single rig to be moved between wells rather than setting up permanent rigs at each drilling location.
18. Military Trucks
Military trucks are more of a subcategory than a particular truck type, as there are different kinds used for different purposes. However, most military trucks are used to transport troops, fuel, equipment and other materials and are designed to be able to cover all kinds of terrain.
They come in a wide range of sizes, from 4x4s all the way up to 12-wheeled vehicles!
19. Mobile Command Centers
A mobile command centre is a type of lorry that provides a centralised location for law enforcement to coordinate operations. Mobile command centres can be loaded with communication equipment, video cameras, bomb diffusing equipment and even technology for processing crime scene evidence. They are also useful as mobile security headquarters, for long-term surveillance and for search and rescue.
20. Mobile Billboard Trucks
We have all seen trucks driving around cities with advertisements emblazoned on them, but actual mobile billboard trucks are vehicles with the main purpose of advertising, often shaped without any cargo compartment but only with the structure to put advertisements on.
That is usually done via large vinyl sheets, while some feature LED screens.
21. Sweeper Trucks
A sweeper truck is a cleaning vehicle used to clear dirt and detritus from streets. Sweeper trucks reduce the need for manual labour in cleaning a street, parking lot or highway. They are fitted with cylindrical brushes that rotate and sweep up debris, as well as flaps to protect the truck from flying material. They also have blowers to release the collected dust, which is then sucked up by the hopper.
22. Catering Trucks
A catering truck is a truck used for preparing and providing food and/or beverages to a large number of people. They are specially equipped to be able to store, transport, cook, prepare and serve or sell food. Ice cream trucks have been well known for decades, but today, food trucks sell everything from sandwiches to tacos to pizza, dim sum and more!
23. Snowploughs
Snow ploughs are trucks designed to plough through snow and ice that has accumulated on the roads. Driving on compacted snow or ice is dangerous, so it must be cleared for the safety of drivers and passengers. The actual ploughing mechanism is attached to the front of the truck so that it can clear the snow as the truck is driven forward.
24. Spool Trucks
A spool truck or cable reel truck is used to transport electrical cables and lay them out on site. The truck’s trailer is fitted with a reel system which the cable is wound around and subsequently unreeled for installation. Spool trucks with trailing cables are also often used in conjunction with face shovels and other electric-powered equipment in open-pit mining.
Truck Configuration Types
The list so far has focused on lorry types in terms of their function. However, each of them must utilise one of the following configuration types in their design.
25. Rigid Trucks
Rigid lorries are trucks made up of a single chassis (no tractor trailer). Rigid lorries are good for beginner truck drivers as driving them is generally easier than driving lorries with trailers. However, they can’t carry an extraordinary number of tonnes (app. up to 30) as articulated ones can do.
26. Articulated Trucks
Articulated lorries are made up of two distinct parts, a tractor and a trailer, which are held together by a pivot joint. Articulated lorries tend to have a much higher load capacity and can handle a cargo weight of up to about 44 tonnes. Curtainsiders, flatbed trucks and dropside trucks are usually articulated lorries.
27. Semi-Trailer
Unlike a full trailer, a semi-trailer does not have front axles, and a large portion of its weight is handled by a road tractor unit. While articulated trucks feature a trailer as part of the truck, a semi-trailer must be attached to a road tractor unit to be viable. Semi-trailers are very popular for long-distance freight as they can accommodate heavier loads.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Many Types Of Trucks Are There?
There are many types of trucks, though the exact number depends on how you classify them. In our list, we counted 27 different types of trucks, but some may overlap. For example, each of the freight trucks must make use of one of the configuration types. We also didn’t include pickup trucks, as these are very different types of vehicles.
What Are The Three Most Commonly Used Types Of Trucks?
The three most commonly used types of trucks are freight trucks like box trucks, curtain-side trucks and flatbed trucks. It’s difficult to determine this as within the category of trucks, there are broader types like articulated and rigid lorries, as well as very specific types like furniture trucks and snow ploughs. In general, though, the most common are the ones mentioned.
What Is A Freight Truck?
A freight truck is a vehicle used to transport goods or materials long distances. They transport everything from dry goods to consumer products to construction materials and more. General freight trucks are box lorries, curtain-side lorries, dropside trucks, tippers and flatbed trucks. More specialised freight trucks include livestock trucks, refrigerated trucks, logging trucks and more.
Conclusion
And there you have it – that’s all the different types of trucks you could ever need to know about! At SDVH, while we may not be able to supply you with a fire truck, we do have various types of cargo trucks for hire, from small trucks to large lorries to tipper trucks. So if you need goods transported, give us a call on 020 8168 8158 to find the perfect vehicle for the job!
