While trucks are everywhere, their uses are incredibly varied. We’ll ignore the trucks that people may own to carry children, camping gear and groceries for the week and focus on commercial applications. What are the most common truck applications in Australia? How are most new trucks used? And what type of trucks are used in each way?
Tipper Trucks
Tipper trucks are trucks with a bed that can “tip”, hence the name. They’re also called dump trucks, tip trucks and dumper trucks. They’re generally used to carry building materials like rocks and sand, though they can carry other things.
They’ll also be used to carry gardening materials like turf and potted trees that can be dumped before the truck drives off. They are also loaded with construction waste and trash that is dumped at the literal trash dump. These trucks aren’t used for hauling delicate cargo or passengers. Everything in the back is exposed to the air unless it is covered with a tarp.
Pantech Trucks
The term Pantech is short for pantechnicon. These trucks have hard panels on all sides. You’ve probably seen a Pantech truck before without knowing the name for it. For example, these are the type of trucks used to deliver appliances to customers or move furniture between buildings.
Because it has permanent panels on all sides, it can be insulated. In some models, the panels are extended to create an enclosed space above the driver’s cab. That may provide extra space when you’re moving furniture or have a chiller in it so the truck can haul refrigerated or frozen foods. Other models put a chiller on the top of the truck.
The enclosed cargo space protects items from theft, exposure to the elements and casual damage. You don’t have to worry about your clothes blowing away because you didn’t seal a box well, and none of the boxes can fall off the truck as they might if you drove an open-bed pickup truck. This is why pantech trucks are among the most popular types of dry vans.
Curtain Sider Trucks
Curtainsider trucks are sometimes called tautliner trucks. Curtain sider trucks are cargo haulers, but they’re designed for commercial and industrial use. They’re defined by the “curtain” on one or both sides of the truck that can be raised up to expose the whole width of the cargo bed.
This is done to give forklifts easy access to the pallets and loads inside. A curtain sider truck tends to be used for deliveries to stories, factories and trailers instead of directly to the consumer.
They give you the convenience of a flatbed truck and the protection of an enclosed cargo truck like the pantech. The relatively open interior allows you to ship large items like plywood that might be hard to load into a pantech truck, too.
Agitator Trucks
Agitator trucks have one purpose, and that is to keep agitating, stirring or otherwise moving the contents inside the truck so that it doesn’t settle or solidify. This is why they’re mostly used as concrete trucks.
And this explains why they’re generally called “concrete mixers” instead of “concrete agitator trucks”. Buying and maintaining a truck to keep the ready-mixed concrete ready to pour is worth it given how much time and labor it saves at the construction site.