What are the Cab Extenders?
Cab extenders are used to seal the gap between the driving cabin and the container of a truck. A cab extender is commonly referred to as a gap seal. Its primary goal is to restrict airflow and reduce the chances of a tuck tipping over. Restricted airflow also maintains a specific temperature when perishable goods are transported.
Significance of Cab Extenders in an E-commerce Shipping and Delivery
Cab extenders reduce vibrational shocks while transporting and decrease the chances of inuring damage to the products. Furthermore, it is also used in temperature control.
- Reduced risk of damage: Cab extenders come in different sizes and are attached to the back of the driving cabin. It fits like a puzzle piece into a container, thus allowing minimum space in between. As the gap seals closely bind the cabin and trailer, vibrational shocks decrease. It reduces the chances of a tip-over caused due to improper weight allocation throughout the truck.
- Temperature control: Gap seals prevent the warm emission of a tuck from entering the trailer. Hence one can transport products with specific temperature requirements.
Prerequisites of Cab Extenders and How It Works
Computing the gap space between the driving cabin and a trailer is considered a requirement to ensure proper utilization of the mentioned benefits. It serves as the only requirement for cab extenders.
- Requirement computation: The truck operator or shipping company calculates the gap space.
- Preparation: An appropriate cab extender is selected and attached to the trailer and the cabin.
- Repeating: Trucks tend to carry trailers of different shapes and sizes. Therefore, one needs to repeat the mentioned steps.
Use Case with Cab Extenders
A truck on the Filipino road was required to carry wood in bulk. The total weight without a cab extender was 23,800 kg. As the gross weight limitation is 24,000 kgs in the Philippines, the truck operator used a plastic cab extender to link the trailer’s weight to the driver’s cabin for optimal weight allocation.