LDM stands for loading metre and measures how much trailer floor length a consignment occupies. One LDM is a strip of floor 1 metre long across the full 2.4 metre trailer width. European road freight carriers price part loads on this figure rather than on weight.
What Does LDM Mean in Freight?
Lademeter in German, laadmeter in Dutch, loading metre in English — one measure quoted by every European groupage carrier, covering 2.4 m² of trailer floor.
Height plays no part in it. A pallet standing 80 cm tall and a pallet standing 180 cm tall consume identical LDM if their footprints match, because the figure measures the floor a load stands on rather than the space it fills. Shippers meeting an unexpectedly high quote on a tall, light consignment are seeing the footprint charged rather than the volume.
The phrase carries a redundancy worth noting. LDM already ends in metre, so "LDM meter" repeats itself. It remains how the term gets typed into a search box, and the meaning is unambiguous inside a freight quote, but the correct written form is LDM or loading metre. Both appear across the freight and road transport terms that govern European part load pricing.
How Do You Calculate Loading Metres?
Multiply length by width in metres, divide by 2.4, divide by the stacking factor, then multiply by quantity.
The divisor does the conversion work. Dividing a footprint area by the trailer's internal width turns square metres of floor into the proportional length of trailer that floor represents.
Take a Euro pallet at 1.2 m × 0.8 m, not stackable:
1.2 × 0.8 ÷ 2.4 = 0.4 LDM
Eight of them:
0.4 × 8 = 3.2 LDM
The same eight pallets stacked two high:
1.2 × 0.8 ÷ 2.4 ÷ 2 × 8 = 1.6 LDM
On a 13.6 LDM trailer, one declaration moves that consignment from 3.2 metres of deck to 1.6.
How Many LDM Does a Pallet Take?
A Euro pallet takes 0.4 LDM. An industrial pallet takes 0.5 LDM. Everything else follows from footprint.
| Load carrier | Footprint | LDM unstacked |
|---|---|---|
| Euro pallet | 1200 × 800 mm | 0.4 |
| Industrial pallet | 1200 × 1000 mm | 0.5 |
| Half Euro pallet | 800 × 600 mm | 0.2 |
| Display pallet | 600 × 400 mm | 0.1 |
A standard 13.6 m trailer holds 33 Euro pallets or 26 industrial pallets in a single tier. Read the other direction, 1 LDM holds 2.5 Euro pallets.
Those trailer counts sit below the figure pure division suggests, because pallets have to fit whole across a fixed width and the remainder cannot be filled. The same applies to smaller carriers — arithmetic gives a higher number than a loading team achieves.
These figures assume standard loading orientation, with pallets positioned to make best use of the trailer width. A Euro pallet turned the other way changes its footprint against the deck and the arithmetic shifts with it.
How Does Stacking Change the LDM Figure?
Stacking divides the figure by the number of layers. Two layers halves it. Three layers reduces it to a third.
The stacking factor comes from physical heights rather than preference. Divide the trailer's internal height — 2.65 m to 2.70 m on a standard curtainsider — by the height of a loaded pallet, then round down. A pallet loaded to 1.0 m gives a factor of 2. A pallet loaded to 1.4 m gives 1, because two of them exceed the roof.
Three conditions have to hold before a load counts as stackable. The goods underneath must carry the weight above without deforming. The combined height must clear the trailer interior. And the load must stay stable through braking, cornering, and road vibration for the full journey. Fragile items, top-heavy configurations, and irregular shapes fail one of those regardless of what the measurements say.
Both directions of error cost something. A shipper declaring stackable goods that cannot take the weight creates a damage claim and a safety problem. A shipper failing to declare genuinely stackable goods pays for floor space that stays empty above the load.
Does LDM or Weight Determine the Rate?
LDM governs the rate until the load reaches the vehicle's payload ceiling, at which point weight becomes the binding constraint. Light freight exhausts the floor first; dense freight exhausts the axle limit first. Carriers charge against whichever runs out.
A trailer carrying its full 33 Euro pallets at 800 kg each totals 26.4 tonnes — beyond what a standard vehicle is permitted to carry, which means the load reaches its weight limit with deck space still unused. Insulation panels filling the same trailer produce the opposite result, with the floor gone and tonnes of capacity spare.
Stacking pushes freight toward the weight constraint. Halving the LDM figure doubles the weight sitting on each remaining loading metre, and carriers apply a weight surcharge where that ratio runs high. A consignment optimised purely for floor space can cost more than one left unstacked.
That interaction is why carriers ask for gross weight alongside dimensions. The dead weight of a consignment sets the boundary within which the LDM calculation operates.
Where Does the LDM Calculation Get Complicated?
Three situations break the clean arithmetic.
Odd quantities under stacking. Three Euro pallets at a stacking factor of 2 calculates to 0.6 LDM. Physically the load needs two floor positions — one column of two, one column of one — occupying the same deck space as four pallets. The formula understates it and carriers charge the floor reality.
Width that does not divide. Industrial pallets measure 1000 mm across. Two placed side by side span 2000 mm, leaving a 400 mm strip against the trailer wall too narrow to take a third. That strip is unusable and gets billed as consumed.
Mixed carrier types. A consignment combining Euro pallets and industrial pallets needs each type calculated separately and the results added. Running mixed footprints through one formula produces a figure that matches nothing.
Carriers round up in every case. A figure landing at 2.3 LDM bills at the next increment the tariff recognises, and the rounding convention differs between operators. The Go Trans logistics glossary covers the surrounding measures — chargeable weight, colli count, and consignment documentation — that carriers request alongside the LDM figure.
How Does Go Trans Use LDM?
Go Trans quotes part loads on the LDM figure calculated from pallet dimensions, quantity, and confirmed stackability.
That figure also decides which service band a consignment falls into. Small volumes move as groupage. Mid-range volumes book as a partial truck load. Above a certain point a dedicated trailer costs less than the accumulated floor space, and the consignment moves as a full load.
Go Trans arranges pallet freight across Europe on that basis, working from measured dimensions rather than estimates, since the carrier commits specific deck space against the figure supplied at booking.