Australian standard pallet

A standard railway wagon carries three containers and can thus hold 60 pallets.

During World War II the United States, as part of their logistics effort, used palletized transport on a scale never before seen.

When the war ended, the Americans left behind their materials handling equipment and a very large stock of pallets in Australia.

Because of this, it was decided to retain the Australian standard pallet, despite it being peculiar to Australia.

Likewise, import goods will not arrive on an Australian standard pallet and need repalletizing for RACE containers.

The intrinsic advantage of palletized transport is that it minimises manual handling operations.

[6] A 2002 report commissioned by the Australian Department of Transport and Regional Services examined the possibility of replacing the Australian standard pallet with the ISO standard size of 1200×1000 mm.

[8] Despite the analysis in the report, Australia continues to use the Australian standard pallet.