trunking

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of trunk.

   The carrier is trunking traffic from the new suburbs onto its main fiber route.

   By trunking its radio users onto shared channels, the county avoided buying new frequencies.

   Note

   Trunk adds -ing with no change to the stem. In networks and radio, trunking means putting many users on a shared set of circuits or channels, the action behind the radio technique. Mining has its own use, separating ore from the slimes that hold it by running them through a trunk, and an obsolete sense meant cutting something short.

2. 2
   nounUKuncountable

   A system of ducts for carrying cables, or for heating or ventilation.

   Workmen are fitting ventilation trunking above the shop's false ceiling.

   Galvanized heating trunking runs the full length of the factory floor.

   Similarducting, ductwork

   Note

   A British builder's word for the ducts themselves rather than what runs through them, usually named by what they carry: ventilation trunking, heating trunking, cable trunking. It covers anything from a galvanized run along a factory floor to a box section hidden above a false ceiling, and it is uncountable for the system as a whole.

3. 3
   nounUKuncountable

   Plastic channeling or ducting that encloses electrical wiring to hide and protect it.

   We ran the speaker cable along the skirting board in white plastic trunking.

   The electrician cut the trunking to length and clipped its lid over the new wiring.

   Similarconduit, ducting

4. 4
   noununcountable

   All the electrical and communications cables in a building, bundled together and distributed through it.

   The building's trunking, hundreds of power, phone and data cables, runs up a shaft beside the elevator.

   Before the renovation, the old trunking had to be traced cable by cable.

   Similarcabling, wiring

   Note

   On a building site the word can name either the cables or the plastic duct that hides them, so the verb usually decides which is meant. Cables are rerouted, traced or bundled; a duct is fitted, cut to length or given a lid. When the difference matters, cable trunking for the duct and simply the cabling for the wires keeps the two apart.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   In two-way radio systems, the automatic assignment of frequency channels to groups of users' radios by means of a control channel.

   Trunking lets hundreds of users share a handful of frequencies without waiting for one to clear.

   The state's emergency services adopted digital trunking to end years of crowded channels.

6. 6
   noununcountable

   In freight, the moving of containers or packages between a terminal and a carrier's inland facilities, or a scheduled transport service between set locations.

   Long-distance trunking keeps the company's trucks running every night between the hub and its regional depots.

   The rail operator offers daily trunking between the container port and three inland depots.

   Similarlinehaul

   Note

   Freight carriers use it for the long middle leg of a journey: goods move in bulk between terminals, hubs and depots, while smaller vehicles collect and deliver at either end. Linehaul names the same work. Modern Railways in 1964 called long-distance trunking the cream of the road haulier's job as well as the railway's, which is why road and rail fought over it.

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