[https://www.letterofcredit.biz/wp-content/uploads/standard-20ft-versus-pallet-wide-20ft-683×1024.png](https://www.letterofcredit.biz/wp-content/uploads/standard-20ft-versus-pallet-wide-20ft-683×1024.png)
The image show the pallet arrangement in the standard 20ft container. I wonder why the pallet is not design to be perfectly fit to the wide of container when aligning.
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You should be able to fit 3 euro pallets together per row, as this is what we do.
To answer your question, a variant of the forklift was created ~1920, and goods movements were being used more. This led to the need to standardise pallet sizes.
With a perfect fit there would be no wiggle room. You would have to be moving perfectly straight in order not to damage the adjacent pallet if there was no space between them. Most often you’re loading and unloading with heavy machinery with a small turning radius.
Also not every pallet of product is the same height. If you have different heights you usually put straps around the taller pallet so it doesn’t tip in transit. You need some extra space for a person to get in there to add and remove the straps.
And many containers for overseas shipments are floor loaded (no pallets – boxes are stacked right on the floor) to maximize the use of space and reduce the weight of shipment. Usually loaded with a metal plate that slips out and painstakingly unloaded by hand with an expanding rolling conveyor.
Finally, EU and American standards hardly matter because almost everything comes from China.
Edit – One more thing. Driving on the road with these containers is not easy. The destination ports are often in cities and then they’re driven to their final destination. Making them wider makes the roads more dangerous for everyone.
The shipping container and pallet where invented / developed independently and for different purposes.Only later, people started putting pallets into containers.
As seen in the picture, beside the *standard* containers, there are now also *palletwide* containers, which have a different size so pallets can be neatly fitted.
The “standard” pallet in the linked article is the standard in Europe: 1200mm x 800mm x 144mm built with blocks.
These are different from the “standard” American pallet, which is 48”x40” with notches on the runners for four way forklift entry. These latter pallets are also called “gma” for the grocery manufacturers association which set the standard many years ago. However, pallet manufacturers use specialized software to design and analyze the structural integrity of their pallets to be spec built based on the “unit load,” or the whatever it is the customer wants to put on their pallet.
Everybody has already mentioned that pallets and containers were built at different times to serve different purposes.
The reason we don’t change the standard pallet is because it’s an easier undertaking to build wider containers than change the standard pallet size because of automation. There’s thousands of different machines and conveyor systems built around the standard 48×40. There’s no real incentive for every manufacturer to change over to a different size.
Items in shipping containers are not always palletized
Items on pallets sometimes exceed the pallet dimensions
As a trucker, you don’t want the load to shift. You also don’t want damage to product. And finally, weight distribution, the more evenly the load can be spread out, both side to side and front to back, the better the ride and cornering. Less likelihood of a preventable accident with good weight distribution.
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