Even after the rise and explosion of telehandlers on the material handling industry, rough terrain lift trucks and vertical mast forklifts can be found picking up and transporting various goods and supplies on jobsites all over the world. There have been many other conventional lift trucks which lost market share to telehandlers. This happened especially when the challenger broke onto the construction scene. Ever since that time, sales numbers have stabilized. Vertical-mast forklifts have re-surfaced and seem to be becoming more popular once more thanks to their greater productivity, lower cost and adaptation of certain telehandler-like features.
Straight-mast machinery will finish two times the job that a telehandler will do because of their ground speed and maneuverability. Interestingly enough, rental companies are starting to charge higher rates on straight-mast units.
Rental purchasers are having significant influence in the rough-terrain lift truck industry. More than half of all vertical-mast forklifts are now being sold to a rental yard. These purchases are normally driven mainly by use, that is a factor closely followed by acquisition price.
The telehandler has become a very common machine in the material handling industry. Their popularity has given them a better advantage in terms of rental utilization. Their overall expansion has been moderated by their higher price. There is several lift truck users who feel that telehandlers are not practically as useful compared to conventional rough-terrain forklifts for unloading and loading repetitive tasks. This means that although competition among telehandler marketers has lowered their prices, many choose the RT forklifts which have been performing well for decades.
In comparison, the telehandler is ganglier, a little slower to operate and needs a higher level of skillfulness to finish the job. On the upside, they get the reach if they need it. There will continuously be a place within the business for lift trucks however, as there are places that you would not be able to access with a telehandler.
The rough-terrain lift truck is compact, small and able to lift a heavier cargo vertically as opposed to the telehandler. Essentially, in order to utilize the right equipment for your application, you should determine what jobs exactly you will be accomplishing, the type of conditions and environment you would be operating in and what your load capacity is. All these factors would help you choose what the right options available are.