Abstract Transportation is an essential component of commercial swine production in the United States. However, the process of transportation, including loading and unloading onto trailers, is a stressful experience for market hogs that results in poor welfare outcomes and substantial economic losses. Therefore, strategies intended to improve the transportation process should be developed. The objective of this study was to determine whether early-life exposure to a ramp structure during the nursery period would affect the ease of loading onto a standard swine trailer at the time of marketing. Weaned pigs (n = 560; 17 to 21 d of age) were penned in groups of 26 and randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatment groups: 1) RAMP (housed in a standard commercial grow-finish pen furnished with a ramp and platform), or 2) CONTROL (standard commercial grow-finish pen with no ramp and platform). After 6 weeks, the ramps and platforms were removed from the RAMP pens and all pigs were housed under normal commercial conditions until they were marketed over 6 loadout days. After pigs in the barn began reaching market weight at approximately 5 months of age, pigs were moved by treatment in groups of 4 and loaded onto a pot belly livestock trailer (trailer and trucker were the same each time). Additionally, the person moving the pigs up the ramp was the same for all loading dates. The total amount of time it took for each group to navigate the ramp leading to the trailer was determined. Data were analyzed using the mixed procedure of SAS (v. 9.4) with total ramp navigation time as the dependent variable. Fixed effects included treatment, day of loading, and their interaction. A repeated measures statement with pen as the subject was included in the model to account for pen as the experimental unit. Overall, RAMP groups required less time to navigate the ramp onto the trailer than the CONTROL groups (69.12 ± 5.39 s vs. 95.11 ± 5.27 s; P = 0.002). Day of loading also affected ramp navigation time (P = 0.004). Specifically, navigation time on day 1 was greater than all remaining loading days (P < 0.05). Additionally, navigation time on day 2 was greater than day 6 (P = 0.02). No interaction between treatment and day of loading was observed (P = 0.41). In conclusion, exposing pigs to ramp structures within their pens during the nursery phase of production improves the loading speed at market weight by removing novelty associated with the loading ramp. Future research on this topic should incorporate additional behavioral and physiological measures to determine whether exposure of nursery pigs to ramps lowers stress and reduces the likelihood of injury during the transportation process at market weight.