Second up on our mini series about what it takes to move freight through the Southeastern states, is Florida. We’re going in with Florida next, as our other founder, Victoria Sparks was born and raised there for many years, so it’s always got a special place in our hearts.

When you think of Florida, you surely think of the beaches, seas, sunshine and Disney right? Well, while these are all fantastic, there is so much more to Florida, it’s not all tourism. In fact, Florida is home to some of the busiest freight hubs in the United States. Each year, there is hundreds of millions of tons of cargo that moves through Florida’s highways, ports and railways and the freight is made up of all kinds of products. Because of Florida’s location it’s a gateway for international freight particularly from the Caribbean and Latin American countries and due to its’ peninsula, it means ground freight does not pass through, unless the freight is making its’ way to a port or airport.

Key Freight Ports In Florida 🚢

Florida is actually the home to 16 publicly owned seaports. Some are more popular than others, but here’s the key seaports that see the most activity day on day.

Port Tampa Bay

The port of Tampa Bay is the busiest and most diverse seaport, that records the largest cargo tonnage volume in Florida. It has the ability to handle all kinds of cargo, from containers, refrigerated cargo, bulk commodities, break bulk, vehicles, cruise ships, and it’s also a gateway for construction materials, steel, forestry goods, cement, limestone and gypsum.

Port Miami

Port of Miami is a busy containerized goods port that handles a large volume of cargo including: textiles, electronics, perishables, industrial goods and retail pieces, etc. It’s a gateway to the Caribbean and Latin America and has an on-dock intermodal rail facility connected to the Florida East Coast Railway for efficient freight movement from ship to major hubs.

Port Everglades

Port Everglades has positioned itself as one of Florida’s leading sea ports for containerized goods. It’s big on perishable cargo, in fact #1 in Florida and has amazing connectivity, making it a part of a global transportation network. It’s less then one mile from the Atlantic shipping lane, has direct access to multi-modal freight options through links to Florida interstates and highways, near-dock FEC railways and is just two miles from Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport.

Jacksonville Port

The port of Jacksonville is large in size and handles a significant volume of freight, specializing in container, vehicle and bulk cargoes. But the port of Jacksonville doesn’t stop there it’s also a critical hub for military cargo, supplies for defense and foreign humanitarian aid. The location of JAXPORT offers strong intermodal rail connections, and highway access.

Fernandina Port

The port of Fernandina has deepwater access, on-dock rail service and extensive warehouse facilities. It handles a mix of imports and exports, with the main bulk of imports coming from Asia and Scandinavia of forest products, building and construction materials. While the main portion of exports from Fernandina include paper products and steel going to the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Port of Manatee

The port of Manatee is the closest deepwater seaport in Florida to the Panama Canal. It mainly serves bulk, breakbulk, container, heavy lift, project and general cargo and handles imports and exports to countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Also has exceptional highway connections with access to Interstate 75, 275 and 4 and great connectivity to railroad.

Port of Panama City

Panama City port handles over 2 million tons of cargo annually, such as containerized, breakbulk and other bulk commodities like: forest products, steel and copper. It has deep water access from the Gulf of Mexico, has an intermodal distribution center with over 660,000 sqft of warehousing and reefer plugs available at the West terminal.

Key Roadways 🛣

Five major interstates run through Florida that form the backbone of the freight network in the state. Here’s a list of the major roads in Florida:

I-95 – The I-95 runs along the East coast of Florida, connecting major cities. Starting in Miami and works its way up through Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Melbourne, Daytona Beach and up to Jacksonville.

I-75 – The I-75 is another crucial highway, that connects the North and the South of Florida. It starts in Miami, making its way through Fort Myers on the West and then cuts through central Florida before reaching the Georgia border.

I-10 – The I-10 is the major East-West route through Florida. It runs from Jacksonville in the East to Pensacola in the West creating a direct route through the Florida panhandle.

I-4 – The I-4 runs from Tampa to Daytona Beach, as it passes through Orlando, it’s the main interstate to the tourist attractions like Disney World, which means a ton of congestion.

Florida’s Turnpike – Another name for the Florida Turnpike that you might know it by is the Ronald Reagan Turnpike. It works as a toll highway and runs from Miami up through Orlando and ends in Wildwood where it connects to the I-75.

Challenges Of Moving Freight In Florida

There are tons of challenges that come with moving freight in the state of Florida.

Weather 🌪

Moving freight in Florida is made more difficult during certain seasons because of the severe weather conditions. As Florida has sub-tropical and tropical climates, it generally experiences hot, humid conditions. With these conditions and where Floria is positioned makes it susceptible to tropical storms, hurricanes, and heavy rain fall. All of which, make driving dangerous because of reduced visibility, reduced traction and flooding leading to hydroplaning. During hurricane and storm season Florida also experiences widespread damage, debris, and dangerous high speed winds, all of which halt operations and disrupt supply chains.

Congested Metro Areas 🚗🚚🚚

Florida’s growth and popular tourist attractions come at a cost, and that cost is…traffic! According to recent studies, Miami, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, are the worst areas for congestion in Florida, with Orlando understandably having seriously bad traffic along the I-4, but with Miami taking the #1 spot in the state for worst passenger and freight vehicle congestion. Drivers in Miami lose hours each week sat in stand still traffic, making moving freight through this area incredibly hard to keep on track for their delivery windows, especially moving oversize freight, extra challenges with the infrastructure arise and can set timescales back even more, as drivers of this kind of freight are restricted to certain routes to ensure they have clearance, meaning if there’s bad traffic, they cannot re-route and simply have to wait.

Strict Oversize & Overweight Freight Regulations 🏋️

The state permit office of the FDOT (Florida Department of Transportation) oversees oversize and overweight permits for Florida’s maintained highways and roadways. These permits are valid for different lengths of time some are annual blanket permits, annual vehicle specific blanket permits, ten day trip permits or three month route specific blanket permits. Although the last two mentioned, the ten day and three month permits require the submission of defined routes alongside the normal request.

When does your freight require extra oversize and overweight permits? 📑

The standard legal limits for commercial freight in Florida are as follows:

Gross weight – 80,000lbs

Single axel weight – 20,000lbs

Tandem axel weight – 40,000lbs

Width – 8.5 feet

Height – 13.5 feet

The state of Florida has a 10% allowance for each axel, making a single axels limit actually 22,000lbs and a tandem axel 44,000lbs and the gross weight never exceeds the maximum of 80,000lb. If it’s absolutely unavoidable, and the freight cannot be broken down into smaller shipments and exceeds the above limits, then this is where an oversize permit comes into play. They don’t only need special permits, but sometimes escorts and other signs and markers are required, along with route surveys.

Types of permits 📃

Before going into the permit application process, you must understand your freight requirements fully, have precise dimensions, weight and route information to hand. Here’s a list of some freight permits required for oversize and overweight freight.

Single trip oversize/overweight permit – As this permit only covers a singular trip, it is valid for 10 days, with maximum dimensions of 16′ wide, 18′ high, 150′ long and no more than 200lbs in weight.

Blanket permit – This permit is called a blanket permit because it covers an unlimited amount of trips for an entire year. The blanket permit covers the same dimensions above, except for the width this one only covers 14′ wide. It can be transferred between vehicles, as long as the vehicles match exactly and must be reviewed by the department of transportation.

Route specific blanket permit – This permit is valid for 3 months, and covers an unlimited number of trips but only along a specific route. It cannot be transferred to other vehicles and again it requires review by the department of transportation.

Vehicle specific blanket permit – This permit is valid for one whole year, it covers an unlimited amount of trips but for one specific vehicle and covers the same freight dimensions 14′ wide, 18′ high, 150′ long and up to 200,000lbs in weight.

Loads that exceed these limits have to apply for Super Load permits.

Other Considerations 🤔

Flags

All over dimensional freight requires red or orange flags to be placed on all four corners of any overhang or protrusions.

Signs

“Oversize Load” signs are a legal requirement on all loads exceeding 10′ wide, over legal length or 14′ high.

Flashing lights

Loads that exceed the 10′ width limit or have over 4′ rear overhang require 360 degree amber lights on tractor. Any freight with a width over 12′, height over 14’6″ and length of 85′ or over require 2 x 360 degree amber warning lights, one on the tractor and one at the rear end of the load.

One escort vehicle

One escort vehicle is required for any freight that falls within these dimensions:

Length: 75′-95′

Overhang: Rear overhang up to 20′

Width: Over 12′

Height: Over 14′ 6″ requires an escort vehicle with a high pole.

Two escort vehicles

Two escort vehicles are needed when these dimensions are exceeded:

Width: Over 14′

Height: Over 16′ creates the need for not only two escort vehicles, but also with a high pole.

Extra escorts

Sometimes one or two escorts don’t cut it, if your load is over 15′ in width a state police escort is also required and if your load has a height above 15′ high then a route survey is also needed.

Operating times ⏰

Oversize freight can legally travel through Florida 30 minutes before sunrise up until 30 minutes after sunset including the weekends, as long as the load is 10′ wide and under, legal length trailer and does not exceed 14’6″ in height. Any loads larger than this are restricted by legal travel times and can only travel until 12:00 noon on a Saturday and Sunday. Whereas, overweight freight can legally travel through the state of Florida 24/7.

Restricted travel 🗓

Different county’s have different curfews which are listed on the Florida permit, but for the most part, travel is prohibited over the main 6 holidays including: New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and Martin Luther King day for any load exceeding 10′ wide and 14’6″ high. Also check the days after New Year’s, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day as they may carry restrictions in certain areas.

It’s important to check the days that these holidays fall on, if any of them fall on a Saturday, then the preceding Friday is observed as a holidays and if they fall on a Sunday, then the following Monday is also observed as a holiday.

So, How Can We Move Freight In Florida Together? 😊

Although we’re not based in Florida, we sure know a thing or two about moving oversize, overweight freight there. Like every state, it has its’ challenges but it also has an incredible amount of amazing freight opportunities too. With 16 active seaports and 5 major interstates it makes Florida a state that never stops moving cargo. However, with that comes congested metro areas and with the added unpredictability of the weather and strict oversize, overweight freight regulations comes a whole lot of challenges that can trip up even experienced shippers.

This is why it’s super important to move your freight with the best in business and we believe that is us 😊. We’ve navigated Florida’s ports, highways and regulations for years, ensuring overweight, oversize, heavy haul freight gets to its’ destination safely and on time. If you need any help, get in touch using the link below or contact us directly on this phone: 888-SHIP-911 we’d love to hear from you!

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