Your first freight quote can read like a foreign language: FTL, LTL, loading metres, Incoterms, CMR. For people who work in logistics every day this is everyday vocabulary — but if you book transport occasionally, alongside procurement, admin and everything else, nobody expects you to know it by heart.
An unclear term in a quote is more than an annoyance. If you do not know the difference between FTL and LTL, or what a given Incoterm covers, it is hard to compare two offers or judge what is actually included in the price.
This glossary walks through 20 terms shippers meet most often — explained simply and ordered the way they appear in the real process: from the enquiry, through planning and the transport itself, to delivery.
Phase 1: Enquiry and quote
Freight forwarding and the freight forwarder
Freight forwarding is organising the transport of goods on someone else's behalf: the forwarder (or transport coordinator) plans, contracts and aligns the transport with carriers and other parties in the chain. The emphasis is on the role, not the vehicles — the same company can act as both forwarder and carrier on a given shipment, but the forwarding role is precisely the organising and coordinating, not the driving itself. The shipper gets a single point of contact instead of a series of separate arrangements.
Carrier
The company that physically performs the transport — it owns or operates the vehicles, vessels, aircraft or wagons. A single door-to-door shipment can involve several carriers, one per leg.
Shipper / consignor and consignee
The party booking the transport is usually the consignor (the sender of the goods) or the consignee (the receiver). Transport documents list them separately, because the party paying for transport is not always the one sending the goods.
FTL (Full Truck Load)
A full truck booked for one customer's shipment only. The goods normally travel directly from loading to unloading, with no transhipment along the way.
LTL (Less Than Truck Load)
A partial load: your shipment takes up part of the vehicle and shares the remaining space with other customers' goods. The usual choice when the goods do not fill a whole truck — bearing in mind that sharing a vehicle usually means additional stops on the route.
Groupage
The systematic consolidation of several smaller shipments from different customers into one vehicle or container. Closely related to LTL; in European practice the term most often refers to regular consolidated lines with scheduled collection and distribution.
Pallet space
The standard unit of vehicle space occupied by one pallet. In European transport the euro pallet (120 × 80 cm) is the most common, so enquiries and quotes often express quantities as a number of pallet spaces.
Loading metre (LDM)
A unit expressing how many linear metres of a vehicle's loading space a shipment occupies across its full width. Used for goods that cannot be stacked or do not have standard pallet dimensions.
Phase 2: Planning the transport
Mode of transport
How the goods travel: by road, sea, air or rail. The right mode depends on quantity, route, deadline and budget — covered in more detail in How to choose a freight mode.
Intermodal (combined) transport
Transport where goods use more than one mode on a single journey — for example by truck to a terminal, by rail across the continent, then by truck again to the destination. The goods usually stay in the same transport unit (a container or trailer); only the means of transport changes.
FCL and LCL
The maritime counterparts of FTL and LTL: FCL (Full Container Load) means the customer uses a whole container, while LCL (Less than Container Load) means the shipment shares a container with other customers' goods.
Incoterms
Internationally standardised rules (published by the International Chamber of Commerce) that define, within a sales contract, who arranges and pays for which part of the transport and when risk passes from seller to buyer. Terms such as EXW, FCA, DAP or DDP materially change what "included in the price" means — which is why the Incoterm is worth stating in the enquiry itself.
Transit time
The time from collection of the goods to delivery at the destination. Quotes normally state it as an estimate for a specific route and mode, not a universal figure — it is affected by the route, borders, customs procedures and slot availability.
Customs brokerage
Representing the customer in customs procedures on import or export: preparing declarations and dealing with the customs authorities. For transport beyond the EU customs territory this is a separate part of the process that has to be arranged — it is worth checking in advance who takes it on.
Phase 3: During transport
CMR (international consignment note for road transport)
The standardised document that accompanies goods in international road transport, named after the international CMR Convention. It records the consignor, consignee, goods and carrier, and serves as evidence of the takeover of the goods and the conditions of carriage.
Bill of Lading and the other modes' transport documents
Each mode has its own transport document: at sea it is the Bill of Lading (B/L), in air freight the Air Waybill (AWB), and in rail the CIM consignment note. They all play a similar role to the CMR — confirming takeover of the goods and the conditions of carriage on their leg.
Shipment tracking (track and trace)
Visibility of where a shipment is and which stage of transport it has reached. Depending on the mode and the parties involved, tracking is based on vehicle, terminal or transport-document data.
Phase 4: Delivery and after
Handover
The moment the goods physically pass from one party to another — from consignor to carrier at loading, between legs in combined transport, and from carrier to consignee at delivery. Each handover is normally documented. Note that the physical handover is not necessarily the moment risk or legal responsibility transfers — that is determined by the contract and the agreed Incoterm.
POD (Proof of Delivery)
The document or confirmation by which the consignee acknowledges receipt of the goods: a signed consignment note or a separate confirmation, increasingly in digital form. For the customer it is formal proof that delivery took place and the basis for any claim if the goods did not arrive in order.
Demurrage, detention and waiting charges
A family of related but distinct charges that arise when goods, a container or a vehicle stand idle longer than agreed. The exact term depends on context: in container shipping, demurrage refers to a container sitting too long at the port or terminal, while detention covers a container kept outside the terminal beyond its free period; in road transport, vehicle waiting time at loading or unloading is charged separately. Realistically planned slots are the simplest way to avoid these costs.
What next?
With these 20 terms you should be able to read most freight quotes without a dictionary — and, more importantly, ask the right questions: is the price for FTL or LTL, which Incoterm applies, who handles customs brokerage, how is the shipment tracked.
If a shipment is coming up, a good next step is our article on how to prepare a freight enquiry — a complete enquiry means quotes you can actually compare. And if you would rather someone else took on the jargon, the documents and the coordination of every leg: Humble Logistics coordinates road, sea, air and rail freight for Croatia and Europe, with routes, deadlines and costs defined upfront.
Let's talk about your logistics needs — send a non-binding enquiry with your shipment details.
