Lorry (Truck): Definition, Types and Uses

A lorry is a large motor vehicle designed to carry goods by road. It is the British English word for what American English calls a truck: the two words name the same vehicle. Lorries range from light rigid trucks for local delivery to 40-tonne articulated combinations, and they are the vehicles that carry road freight from the loading point to the receiver. Above 3.5 tonnes they form the class the UK calls heavy goods vehicles (HGV), the category with its own licences, tests and driving rules.

Lorry definition and the EU vehicle classes

Dictionaries keep the definition short: Cambridge describes a lorry as a large road vehicle used for transporting goods, and Oxford marks the word as British English, with truck used especially in North America. EU law is more precise. Regulation (EU) 2018/858 groups motor vehicles designed and constructed mainly for carrying goods in category N and splits them by maximum mass:

Trailers and semi-trailers fall outside category N. EU law treats them as non-self-propelled vehicles and gives them their own class, O, so a lorry pulling a trailer is a combination of an N vehicle and an O vehicle.

Types of lorry body

The chassis says little about what a lorry can carry. The body does, and these are the main types:

• Curtainsider: a tarpaulin body with sliding side curtains, loaded from the side and the rear, common for palletised freight.
• Box and refrigerated body: closed for sensitive goods; the refrigerated version keeps the load at a set temperature.
• Tipper: for bulk material such as sand, gravel or excavated soil.
• Tanker and silo: for liquids, powders and granules.
• Swap body: a body that can be set down on its legs and exchanged, so the chassis drives on with another one.
• Special vehicles: car transporters, concrete mixers and the concrete pump truck with its folding placing boom.

Which body pays off depends on the orders a company runs, and so does the software around it. IMPARGO describes its TMS solutions by transport type, from FTL and bulk to silo, distribution and ADR.

Rigid lorry, articulated lorry and drawbar combination

Lorry is also the umbrella term for single vehicles and combinations. Three configurations do most of the work, and Council Directive 96/53/EC sets their maximum lengths in the EU:

• Rigid lorry: the cab and the body sit on one chassis that cannot be uncoupled. As a single motor vehicle it may be at most 12.00 m long.
• Articulated lorry: a tractor unit without its own load space pulls a semi-trailer, up to 16.50 m in length. The entry on the articulated truck, with its fifth-wheel coupling, weights and limits, goes into detail.
• Drawbar combination (road train): a rigid lorry with its own body pulls a drawbar trailer, up to 18.75 m.

The same directive sets a maximum width of 2.55 m (2.60 m for the bodies of conditioned vehicles such as reefers) and a maximum height of 4.00 m. For international traffic it limits five- and six-axle articulated and drawbar combinations to 40 tonnes; in intermodal transport, a three-axle tractor with a two- or three-axle semi-trailer may weigh 44 tonnes when it carries containers or swap bodies up to a total length of 45 feet. Member states may allow other values for certain domestic operations, so the limit that binds a cross-border tour is the strictest one along its route.

Uses of lorries in road freight

Lorries have many uses. They carry full loads from one sender to one receiver, part loads and groupage with several stops, distribution rounds in towns, bulk and tank transport, and the road legs to and from ports and rail terminals. Each use asks for a different vehicle. A town distribution round may need a short rigid lorry with a tail lift, a long-haul full load an articulated combination with the longest possible loading space, a building site a tipper.

Whatever the use, the vehicle's size and mass decide where it can go. Bridges, tunnels and town centres carry limits on weight, height and axle load, and a 4-metre lorry has no business under a lower bridge. Planning with a truck route planner that works with the vehicle's dimensions and weights keeps the lorry on roads it may use and the price of the tour honest.