Pallets. Bulky cartons. Industrial gear. The awkward stuff that needs a tailgate and two people. Intime runs taxi trucks across Melbourne, door to door, for businesses that need a real truck and a real driver today.
What a taxi truck is, and when you need one
A taxi truck is a truck hired for a single job, point to point, rather than a scheduled run or a shared courier network. Your freight goes on the truck, the truck goes to the delivery address, and nothing else gets loaded on the way. It’s what you use when the freight is too big for a courier, too urgent for standard transport, or too valuable to sit in a depot overnight being handled four times.
Most people ring us for a taxi truck because a courier has knocked the job back on size, or because a pallet has to be somewhere this afternoon and the regular carrier can’t get to it until Thursday.
What we move
- Palletised goods of pretty much any flavour
- Bulky cartons, oversized boxes and mixed freight
- Industrial and trade supplies
- Construction and site deliveries
- Machinery, equipment and parts
- Anything needing tailgate loading or unloading
- Freight that a parcel network won’t accept
What size truck do you need?
Getting the vehicle right the first time is most of the job. Our fleet covers:
- 1 tonne van or ute — small pallets, single items, tight access
- 2 tonne van — a few pallets, standard business deliveries
- 4 tonne with tailgate — the workhorse. Palletised freight with no forklift at the other end
- 8 tonne — larger consignments, multi-pallet loads
- 12 tonne and semi — bulk pallet movements and heavy industrial freight
If you’re not sure which you need, ring us and describe the load. Three questions on the phone is usually enough to work it out.
Worth saying plainly: we send a truck that can do the job, which isn’t always the smallest one that would fit. If you need six pallets moved this afternoon and the 12-pallet truck is what’s free, that’s what turns up. Your freight gets there today rather than tomorrow, and you’re not paying for the extra space.
You pay for the truck the job needs
The rate is set by the vehicle your job requires, not by whichever vehicle we send. If the work needs a 6 tonne and the 12 tonne is what’s free that afternoon, you’re charged the 6 tonne rate. Upsizing is our operational problem, not your invoice.
The rate we quote at booking is the rate you’re charged. It changes if the freight changes – more pallets than described, a tailgate nobody mentioned, a site that turns out to be hand-unload – but not because of what was sitting in the yard when the job came in.
Two-hour minimum, then the time it took
Metro jobs run on a two-hour minimum and then actual elapsed time in 30-minute blocks. A job that takes two hours twenty is charged as two and a half.
Most operators quote a low hourly rate and put a three, four or five-hour minimum underneath it. That’s fine for the occasional job. It stops being fine when you’re booking us every week and start noticing that 90-minute deliveries keep arriving on the invoice as four hours. We’d rather charge a real rate for real time and have the invoice make sense when someone in your office checks it.
Regional work is priced on distance instead – flagfall plus loaded kilometres by truck class – because running a country job on the clock means padding hours to cover the trip home.
Door to door, dock to dock
Door-to-door delivery across Melbourne means the freight goes from your pickup point to the delivery address on one vehicle, with one driver, and no depot in between. Nothing gets cross-docked, re-sorted or transferred, which is where most damage and most delays come from.
For business deliveries that usually means dock to dock. For sites, it means the driver takes it as far as access allows and tailgates it down if there’s no forklift. Tell us what you’re expecting at the other end and we’ll send something that can handle it.
Tailgate and unloading
Plenty of delivery points have no forklift. A tailgate truck handles that, but it changes the timing and the vehicle, so it’s worth mentioning when you book rather than when the driver arrives. Same with hand-unloading, two-person jobs, or anything needing a pallet jack on site.
Where we run
We cover Melbourne metro from our Hallam depot, including the south-eastern industrial corridor, Dandenong, the eastern suburbs, the city and inner north, and the western industrial areas.
Regional Victorian and interstate work is coordinated for account customers where it connects to a Melbourne job.
Booking a taxi truck
Ring 1300 653 303 and have this handy:
- Pickup and delivery addresses
- What the freight is, roughly how big and how heavy
- How many pallets or pieces
- Whether there’s a forklift at each end, or you need a tailgate
- When it needs to be there
That’s usually enough for us to quote it on the call and have a truck on the way.
Regular work gets easier
Taxi truck freight works best when our team already knows your sites, your loading points and your receivers. Regulars stop having to explain themselves – the driver pulls up and gets on with it. Account customers also get first call on capacity, which matters on the days when everyone wants a truck at once.
One-off jobs are welcome when they fit around the plan.
Taxi truck questions
Physically, sometimes. Practically, only if there’s a forklift or dock at both ends, because vans have no tailgate. If either end is a hand-unload, you want the 4 tonne truck.
Depends on the time of day and what’s running. Ring and we’ll tell you straight rather than promise an hour we can’t hit. Account customers get first call on capacity when things are tight.
Someone needs to be able to load, or the site needs a forklift. If it’s a hand-load, tell us when you book so we send a driver expecting it and allow the time.
For most jobs yes, within reason. Heavy hand-unloads and anything needing two people should be flagged at booking, because it changes the time the job takes and we’d rather price it than surprise you.
Ring us before the driver arrives if you can. If the freight has grown, the vehicle and the rate may need to change – better sorted on the phone than at the dock.