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

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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 ft 6 in (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 US $2,500 in China, the biggest manufacturer. *. 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 ft 6 in (2.9 m), while half-height containers, used for heavy loads, have a height of 4 ft 3 in (1.3 m). When converting containers to TEUs, the height of the containers typically is not considered.

History

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Malcom McLean can reasonably claim to be the man who conceived the idea of container shipping to replace the traditional break bulk method of handling dry goods. Containers produced a huge reduction in port handling costs, contributing significantly to lower freight charges and, in turn, boosting trade flows. Almost every manufactured product humans consume spends some time in a container.

Containerization is an important element of the innovations in logistics that revolutionized freight handling in the 20th century. Numerous earlier efforts to ship freight in containers had not resulted in lower costs. McLean realized that to improve efficiency, the container needed to be easily transferrable from one mode of transportation to another as part of a comprehensive system. His first container ship left Port Newark for Houston, Texas on April 26, 1956, carrying 58 trailers. McLean's company, Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corp., was subsequently renamed Sea-Land Corporation and was for many years the largest container shipping company in the world. Levinson, Marc. "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Larger (Princeton University Press 2006). See also pantechnicon van and trolley and lift van.

Containerization has revolutionized cargo shipping. Today, approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide moves by containers stacked on transport ships; 26% of all containers originate from China. As of 2005, some 18 million total containers make over 200 million trips per year. There are ships that can carry over 9,000 TEU, and designers are working on freighters capable of 14,000 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.

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.

The widespread use of ISO standard containers has driven 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.

Use of the same basic sizes of containers across the globe has lessened the problems caused by incompatible rail gauge sizes in different countries. Most of the trains in the world operate on gauge track known as standard gauge but many industrialized countries like Australia, Russia, Finland and Spain use broader gauges while many countries in Africa and South America use narrower gauges on their networks. The use of container trains in all these countries makes trans shipment between different gauge trains easier, with automatic or semi-automatic equipment.

Effect of Development of Containerization on Status Quo

In the United States, at first, containerization grew through cracks in the rigid regulatory structure of the 1960s. But the United States' present fully integrated systems became possible only after the Interstate Commerce Commission's regulatory oversight was cut back (and later abolished in 1995), trucking and rail were deregulated in the 1970s and maritime rates were deregulated (with very little fanfare) in 1984.

In some ways, Malcom McLean's vision was nothing new. Beginning in 1929, Seatrain Lines had carried railroad boxcars on its sea vessels to transport goods between New York and Cuba. Likewise, the idea of putting truck trailers on railroad flatcars was a method of moving less-than-railroad carload shipments economically. This integrated transport concept held the hope of competing with trucks, which were taking more and more of this business from the railroads. From 1926 to 1947, the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railway carried motor carrier vehicles and shippers' vehicles loaded on flatcars between Milwaukee and Chicago. In the mid-1930s, the Chicago Great Western Railway Company and then the New Haven railroad began piggy-back service limited to their own railroad. By 1953, the CB&Q, the Eastern Illinois and the Southern Pacific railroads had joined the innovation. Most cars were surplus flatcars equipped with new decks. By 1955, an additional 25 railroads had begun some form of piggy-back trainler service. What was new about McLean's innovation was the idea of using large containers that were never opened in transit between shipper and consignee and that were transferable on an intermodal basis, among trucks, ships and railcars.

Using these concepts, McLean initially favored the construction of "trailerships"-—taking trailers from large trucks and stowing them in a ship’s cargo hold. This method of stowage, referred to as roll-on/roll-off, was not adopted because of the large waste in potential cargo space onboard the vessel, known as broken stowage. Instead, he modified his original concept into loading just the containers, not the chassis, onto the ships, hence the designation container ship or "box" ship.

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 and purchases over $1 billion of rail transportation annually. 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

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Containerization".

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