Compliance is a document, not a promise
Vaccines, insulin, fresh produce and frozen food all come with a temperature range. Shippers — and the auditors behind them — increasingly ask carriers for evidence: a record of every reading, any excursions and what was done about them.
Before loading
- The range on the booking. 2–8 °C, −18 °C or 15–25 °C — set per load, not assumed per truck.
- Pre-cooling. The reefer should be at temperature before the doors open. Record the reading.
- A vehicle check. Unit running, seals intact, floor clean, logger on — with failures escalated.
In transit
Readings should be continuous where possible — from the reefer’s sensor via your GPS platform — and entered by the driver where not. Every reading belongs to the load, not just the truck, so a multi-drop reefer can show each shipper their own history.
When something goes wrong
An excursion is not automatically a lost load — but an excursion nobody noticed is. Alerts should reach your operations team and the shipper at once, so a decision can be made while the goods are still on the road.
After delivery
A compliance report should include:
- A chart of every reading against the allowed range.
- Minimum and maximum temperatures.
- Time out of range and each excursion with its time.
- The pre-cooling reading and the source of readings (sensor or manual).
Mixing cold loads
Combining part loads in one reefer is efficient — as long as their ranges are compatible. Check it when the truck is planned.
How Logxa handles it
Logxa’s road freight software stores a temperature range per load, records pre-cooling and checklists, reads sensor temperatures from Traccar, Samsara, Geotab and Wialon, alerts staff and shippers on excursions and prints a compliance report per load. See cold chain software.