Hooklift and skip loader trucks: how they differ, DIN standards and published capacities

A hooklift truck and a skip loader truck both carry a container that can be set down and left on the ground, and they handle it in different ways. A hooklift has a hydraulic arm with a hook that catches a bar on the container and pulls the container onto the truck. A skip loader has two arms and lifts the skip on chains, loading and unloading it level. In Germany the two are called Abrollkipper and Absetzkipper and have separate national standards: DIN 30722 for hooklift vehicles and their containers, DIN 30723 for skip loader vehicles and DIN 30720 for their skips. In North America the cable roll-off hoist is sold alongside the hooklift. Palfinger’s published hooklift classes run from loads of up to 3 t to lifting capacities of 36 t, and Hyva, Marrel, Meiller and Palfinger all list skip loaders up to 18 t. Meiller’s hooklift data sheets state their rating including the container and give a separate effective payload, which depends on the chassis and can be lower.

Status as of 4 November 2026. Read on that day: the DIN Media catalogue entries and DIN’s published tables of contents for DIN 30722-1 and DIN 30720-1 and -2, the catalogue entry for DIN 30723-1, the product pages of Hiab, Hyva, Marrel, Meiller, Palfinger and Stellar, and Meiller’s data sheets and skip loader brochure. The DIN standards themselves are sold and were not read, so their content is given only as far as those entries and contents lists state it. No EN, ISO or North American standard for these systems was opened.

The two systems side by side

What the DIN standards cover

DIN 30722-1:2025-08 is the current edition of part 1, replacing the 2021-12 edition. DIN’s catalogue entry says it applies to hooklift vehicles of up to 26 t total mass, to the hooklift equipment (Wechsellader-Einrichtung) and to containers, with a pick-up height of 1,570 mm, called System 1570. It sets requirements for the vehicle, including acceptance, for the equipment and for the containers. In DIN’s description the vehicle is the equipment plus a chassis, the equipment sets containers on and off and empties them, and the provisions on equipment and containers are what makes containers interchangeable. DIN’s own English title calls these roller contact tipper vehicles and roller containers.

The table of contents lists radio remote controls, steps and grab handles, work lamps, marking, maintenance and repair, and the position of container identification systems, with informative annexes on a stability calculation, a data sheet, a weight balance and a checklist for acceptance and repeat inspections. Its figures give connecting dimensions for hook pick-up and for cable pick-up. The 2025 edition dropped a third figure, for chain-bracket pick-up (Kettenbockaufnahme): DIN’s change note says those dimensions can lead to collisions and that such systems have a generally low share of the market.

DIN 30720-1:2016-02 and DIN 30720-2:2016-02 cover the skips, and DIN Media lists both as current. Part 1 covers standard skips of 5 to 10 m³ in forms A, S and SD; part 2 covers 15 and 20 m³ in form A, with a sub-frame. Part 2’s entry says its skips are used on skip loader vehicles to DIN 30723 and on other suitable vehicles as demountable load carriers. Both parts have sections on load securing, material, the strength of the suspension pins and tipping bearings, and a normative annex with a checklist for acceptance and repeat inspections. The series goes back to a single DIN 30720 of November 1990, split into two parts in 2009, when a triple tipping bearing on both sides of the skip was added and the 4 m³ skip was dropped.

DIN 30723-1 sets sizes and requirements for skip loader vehicles and their equipment, plus a data sheet for the body used between purchaser, vehicle maker and body builder. It applies to equipment for skips to DIN 30720-1 and -2 and containers to DIN 30730, which Meiller describes as mobile compactors. Those statements come from the entry for the 2022-10 edition; DIN lists that edition as withdrawn and replaced by DIN 30723-1:2025-06, whose entry was not read.

Hook height and container length

Hook height is the distance from the container’s supports to the centre of the pick-up hook, in Hyva’s definition. Meiller’s connecting-dimension sheet, edition 02.2023, has one page for the 1,570 mm bracket, citing DIN 30722 parts 1 and 2, DIN 30730 and DIN 14505, and one for the 900 mm bracket, citing DIN 30722 parts 3 and 2:

• 1,570 mm. Interior container lengths of 3,750 to 7,000 mm in 250 mm steps, overall lengths of 4,150 to 7,400 mm. The pick-up bracket has a diameter of 50 mm for chassis up to 26 t and 60 mm for chassis up to 32 t.
• 900 mm. Interior container lengths of 3,500 to 5,000 mm, overall lengths of 3,750 to 5,250 mm.

Meiller’s hooklift sheets also list strap heights of 1,370 to 1,480 mm as an option. Hyva’s product filter offers hook heights of 900, 930, 1,000, 1,190, 1,390, 1,420, 1,450 and 1,570 mm. Hiab’s US Ultima series gives 54 and 61.75 inches, about 1,372 and 1,568 mm.

Meiller’s sheets add that the container height depends on the vehicle and is to be chosen so that the overall height of 4,000 mm in the German Motor Vehicle Construction and Use Regulations is not exceeded with the vehicle unladen, and they give 2,550 mm as the maximum container width under the same regulations.

Arm types

Hooklifts. Hyva sorts its systems by the movement of the mast: sliding, knuckle, or sliding and knuckling. Meiller offers a telescopic arm (T), which it describes for containers that are often the same size, and a telescopic and swivelling arm (TS/TSN) for more container variety, low heights, pulling a container on flat or transferring it to rail wagons.

Skip loaders. Hyva’s types are cranked (telescopic arms with a Z-like shape), telescopic and fixed. Meiller lists five: N for skips that are often the same size, T for high tipping and all skip sizes, TG for restricted space, Z for low height while travelling, as in underpasses, and ZA for low height while working, as when picking up skips in halls. Marrel offers telescopic arms on its Multibenne as an option, for setting a container down in a pit.

Hooklift capacities

Meiller’s data sheets separate the rating from what a truck can carry. The technically admissible payload includes the container, and the effective payload, also including the container, depends on the chassis. Chassis weights and axle loads are set out in gross combination weight, GVW and axle loads, and wheel formulae in axle configurations.

The RS26-K and RK30-K sheets state 28,000 kg for the chassis, while Meiller’s product page lists both series from 28 t and describes the RS26 for vehicles of over 28 t. The hooklift weights leave out the oil tank, pump, fixing parts and other equipment, and the RS21 sheet gives 16 to 25 s for setting a container down, 20 to 30 s for tipping and 19 to 34 s for picking up or lowering.

Skip loader capacities

On a skip loader the rating depends on how far the arms are extended. Meiller’s sheets give four figures for each model, and a footnote says the road-level figures take no account of stability.

The sheets do not say who issues the C.H.E.M. specifications. Meiller says its skip loader platform has no vehicle-specific subframe, and that the telescopic equipment of the AK14 reaches almost 4.5 metres, for example to transfer a skip in trailer operation.

What they carry and who uses them

Hiab and Palfinger list waste and recycling and construction first for both systems. Palfinger adds, for hookloaders, agriculture, public services including fire brigades and road maintenance, craftsmen with small trucks and defence; Hyva names firefighting for its hookloaders, and Marrel’s list of industries has defence and emergency services, landscaping and mining.

A hooklift carries more than waste containers. Marrel lists skips, containers, bodies, hooklift bins and demountable platforms, on truck, van and light commercial vehicle chassis; Hiab’s XR series adds flatbed and dump bodies; Palfinger names construction machinery, sand, gravel and liquids such as fuel and water. Hiab’s MULTILIFT Commander is a hybrid of hooklift and ISO shipping container handler, and Palfinger’s SCORPION, developed for the military, loads standard or ISO containers with a Container Handling Unit.

Skip loaders work level. Palfinger cites the flat unloading of the concept and a wide space between the telescopic arms, and Marrel says its Multibenne carries several nested skips on trucks or trailers and stacks empty ones to save storage space and trips. Hyva also names stacking containers on trailers. Marrel lists rubble, earth and waste collection among the loads.

Securing the container, controls and drive

For hooklifts, Meiller lists an internal hydraulic lock with a locking bolt, a combined system usable as internal or external lock, and fixed or bolted locking latches. For skip loaders it has manual skip stops as standard, a hydraulic clamping module against sideways slip and a hydraulic module with hooks that engage the skip’s pivot bearings at front and rear, and it says all its skip loaders meet the load-securing requirements of sections 22 and 23 of the German road traffic regulations and section 30 of the construction and use regulations, with VDI 2700 and sheet 17, verified by a TÜV Nord loading certificate. The change note to DIN 30720-1:2016 records that the standard’s reference to VDI 2700 sheet 17 was deleted. Meiller also sells tarpaulin systems for skips.

Hiab’s Ultima hooklifts use electric cab controls, a hook safety latch and a body-up warning light, and its HiVision system shows the working area on a cab screen with cameras and sensors. Palfinger’s skiploaders have a radio remote control and an external control with a dead-man function for sites where radio control is not authorised.

The equipment is hydraulic. Meiller says its bodies suit all electric trucks from European makers, whether with a mechanical power take-off or an electromechanical one, and that on an electric drive the pump runs only while the body moves; Palfinger’s mounting kits cover electric and alternative-fuel trucks.

Cable roll-off hoists

Hiab’s United States site puts two lines under one heading: MULTILIFT hooklifts and Galfab roll-off cable hoists. Galfab became part of Hiab in 2021. Its hoists come as outside rail, in standard and heavy-duty versions, inside/outside rail, above frame or deadlift designs, with extendible-tail series that give a low loading angle; its container securement system runs on the truck’s air system. Stellar lists hooklift, roll-off and container trucks together, with NXT, Shuttle and Slider hooklifts, container carriers and a Cable Hoist Container Hooklift Adapter Kit.

Names by market

The term varies between makers’ English pages. Hiab, Marrel and Meiller write hooklift; Palfinger and Hyva’s global site title their pages hookloader, while Hyva’s United States site writes hooklift. Hiab, Palfinger, Hyva and Marrel write skiploader, Meiller skip loader. DIN’s English titles use roller contact tipper vehicle for the first and, depending on the part, multi-bucket system vehicle or skip loader vehicle for the second. Marrel’s French page sets generic names beside two of its own brands. Marrel says it developed the Multibenne in 1950 and invented and patented the Ampliroll in 1970, and that the brand has entered everyday language: “people often refer to an Ampliroll® rather than a hooklift”.

Neighbouring bodies

On tipper trucks the body stays on the chassis; that page also lists the chassis truck makers offer, some of them named for hook lifts, and sets out tipping stability. Refuse collection vehicles empty bins and containers into their own body under their own standards. Palfinger says a hookloader is sometimes combined with a loader crane; the crane, its standard and how EU machinery law treats machinery mounted on a vehicle are covered under truck-mounted loader cranes. Swap bodies are a separate freight unit with its own standards, though Palfinger’s German page uses Wechselbehälter, the German term for a swap body, alongside Abrollbehälter.