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Containerization

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Shipping containers at a terminal.
Part of an American doublestack container train loaded with 53 ft. containers; this equipment operated by Pacer Stacktrain, Concord CA.

Containerization is a system of intermodal cargo transport using standard ISO containers (also known as isotainers) that can be loaded on container ships, railroad cars and trucks.

Container dimensions

There are five common standard lengths, 20 ft (6.1 m), 40 ft (12.2 m), 45 ft (13.7 m), 48 ft (14.6 m) and 53 ft (16.2 m). US domestic standard containers are generally 48 ft and 53 ft. Container capacity (of ships, ports, etc) is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU, or sometimes teu). A twenty-foot equivalent unit is a measure of containerized cargo capacity equal to one standard 20 ft (length) × 8 ft (width) × 8.5 ft (height) container. In metric units this is 6.10 m (length) × 2.44 m (width) × 2.59 m (height), or approximately 39 m3. These sell at about $2500 in China, the biggest manufacturer. [1]. Most containers today are of the 40-ft variety and thus are 2 TEU. 45 ft containers are also designated 2 TEU. Two TEU are referred to as one forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU). These two terms of measurement are used interchangeably. "High cube" containers have a height of 9.5 ft (2.9 m), while half-height containers, used for heavy loads, have a height of 4.25 ft (1.3 m). When converting containers to TEUs, the height of the containers typically is not considered.

History

A container ship being loaded by a portainer crane in Copenhagen Harbour
Twistlocks which capture and constrain containers. Forklifts designed to handle containers have similar devices
.
A container freight train in England

Containerization is an important element of the logistics revolution that changed freight handling in the 20th century. Malcolm McLean claimed to have invented the shipping container in the 1930s in New Jersey. Then a truck owner-operator, McLean explained that while sitting at a dock waiting for cotton bales to be unloaded from his truck and then reloaded onto a ship, he realized that the truck itself (with some minor modifications) could be transferred much more efficiently. Years later, McLean founded Sea-Land Corporation and his first container ship left Port Newark for Houston, Texas on April 26, 1956, carrying 58 trailers. [1] See also pantechnicon van and trolley and lift van.

Containerization revolutionized cargo shipping. Today, approximately 90% of cargo worldwide moves by containers stacked on transport ships. 26% of all containers originates from China. As of 2005, some 18 million containers madk over 200 million trips per year. There are ships that can carry over 6,000 TEU, and designers are working on freighters capable of 13,000 TEU. It has even been predicted that, at some point, container ships will be constrained in size only by the Straits of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Such a ship would be as long as one-quarter of a mile, and 190 feet wide. [1]

However, few initially foresaw the extent of the influence containerization would bring to the shipping industry. In the 1950s, Harvard University economist Benjamin Chinitz predicted that containerization would benefit New York by allowing it to ship industrial goods produced there more cheaply to the Southern United States than other areas, but did not anticipate that containerization might make it cheaper to import such goods from abroad. Most economic studies of containerization merely assumed that shipping companies would begin to replace older forms of transportation with containerization, but did not predict that the process of containerization itself would have some influence on producers and the extent of trading. [1]

The widespread use of ISO standard containers influenced modifications in other freight moving standards, gradually forcing removable truck bodies or swap bodies into the standard sizes and shapes (though without the strength needed to be stacked), and changing completely the worldwide use of freight pallets that fit into ISO containers or into commercial vehicles.

Improved cargo security is also an important benefit of containerization. The cargo is not visible to the casual viewer and thus is less likely to be stolen and the doors of the containers are generally locked (or rather "sealed") so that tampering is more evident. This has reduced the "falling off the truck" syndrome that long plagued the shipping industry.

Double stack containerization

The advent of "double-stacked" container transport has changed the entire intermodal freight distribution industry in North America. It has resulted in more cost-effective, secure, and reliable freight shipments, and provided domestic intermodal rail capacity that could not otherwise have been possible.

The double-stack rail car's unique design also significantly reduced damage in transit, and provided greater cargo security by cradling the lower containers so their doors cannot be opened. A succession of large, new domestic container sizes was introduced to further enhance shipping productivity for customers.

Origins of Double-Stack

As early as the 1970s, doublestack designs and equipment were introduced, but the cars were heavy and uneconomical to operate.

While always deflecting credit to the many contributors who enabled the introduction of Stacktrain rail service, Pacer International's chief executive officer Donald Orris is widely considered the "Father of Stacktrain Service." He earned that moniker for his role in the early 1980s, as the head of APL's intermodal department, in sponsoring the development and implementation of lightweight, fuel-efficient equipment and the first successful operating network.

With Orris' system, launched in 1984, container trains were finally able to break cost, capacity and service barriers by using specially engineered rail cars that could carry two tiers of containers instead of one -- significantly reducing the locomotive power, track capacity and train crews required by conventional intermodal trains to move a comparable payload.

In 1999, Pacer International acquired the original double-stack network that Orris and his colleagues had helped develop and named it "Pacer Stacktrain." Pacer remains the largest wholesale provider of double-stack rail service in North America. (see current double-stack equipment, photo immediately above.)

Impact on Transportation

For freight intermediaries -- the intermodal marketing companies, ocean carriers, and other third parties that market end-to-end transportation services to businesses that ship product worldwide -- introduction of double-stack changed their business. It was more cost-effective than basic container-on-flat car, piggyback or truck for cross-country moves; also, it significantly reduced cargo damage and claims, helping the intermediaries better sell intermodal services to skeptical prospects.

Pacer Stacktrain now (2006) carries more than one million containers per year. The company accounts for more than 20 percent of all domestic container moves in North America. Overall, the double-stack market has grown more than 100-fold since 1984, and now accounts for about 70 percent of intermodal shipments.

Container types

  • Dry Van (standard height)
  • Dry Van ("high cube")
  • Dry Van (half-height)
  • Open-Top
  • Open-Side
A railroad car with container loads.
  • Side-Door
  • Refrigerated
  • Auto Rack
  • Flat Rack
  • Flatbed (platform)
  • Bulktainers (for dry goods)
  • Tanks (for liquid goods)
  • Gas Bottle
  • Generator
  • Collapsible ISO
  • Swapbody

Biggest container companies

Top 12 container transportation and shipping companies

(listed in order of number of ships & twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU))

01 May 2005
Company Number of ships Company TEU
Maersk Sealand incl. Safmarine 387 Maersk Sealand incl. Safmarine 1,036,582
Mediterranean 257 Mediterranean 681,334
CMA CGM 185 P&O Nedlloyd * 460,203
P&O Nedlloyd * 162 Evergreen 439,538
Evergreen 153 CMA CGM 412,007
COSCO 118 APL 315,879
China Shipping C.L. (CSCL) 111 Hanjin-Senator 298,173
NYK Line 105 China Shipping C.L. (CSCL) 290,089
APL 99 COSCO 289,800
Pacific International Lines 97 NYK Line 281,722
Zim Integrated Shipping Services 93 OOCL 237,318
CSAV Group 83 CSAV Group 215,992


(SOURCE: BRS-Alphaliner)

* Maersk acquired P & O Nedlloyd (13 August 2005), the new combined entity will be called "Maersk Line" starting February 2006.

Other container systems

Containers used for housing and other architecture

Main article: Shipping Container Architecture
The Nomadic Museum is a building composed of 156 shipping containers.

In North America, containers are in many ways an ideal building material, because they are strong, durable, stackable, cuttable, movable, modular, plentiful and relatively cheap. It is not surprising then that architects as well as laypeople have utilized them to build homes, offices, apartments, schools, dormitories, artists' studios, emergency shelters and many other uses. They are also used to provide temporary secure spaces on construction sites and other venues on "as is" basis instead of building shelters.

The abundance and relative cheapness during the last decade comes from the deficit in manufactured goods coming from North America in the last two decades. These manufactured goods come to North America from Asia and, to a lesser extent, Europe, in containers that often have to be shipped back empty ("deadhead"), at considerable expense. It is all too often cheaper to buy new containers in China and elsewhere in Asia, and to try to find new applications for the used containers that have reached their North American cargo destination.

In fiction

The containerization system, containers, tracking of containers, and moving of containers is extensively made use of in the HBO television series The Wire.

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c Levinson, Marc (Mar. 13, 2006). "The Box That Changed Asia and the World", pp. 31–40. Forbes.

Other references

  • Marc Levinson, The Box, How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (Princeton Univ. Press 2006).
  • Frank Broeze, The Globalisation of the Oceans: Containerisation from the 1950s to the Present. International Maritime Economic History Association, 2002.
  • Alexander Jung for Der Spiegel (2005). "The Box That Makes the World Go Round". Retrieved November 26, 2005.

See also

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