Containerization (or containerisation) is a system of intermodal freight transport Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation , without any handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The method reduces cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damages and losses, and allows freight to be transported faster using standard intermodal containers An intermodal container or freight container is a reusable transport and storage unit for moving products and raw materials between locations or countries; the terms container or box may be used on their own within the context of shipping. Containers manufactured to ISO specifications may be referred to as ISO containers and the term high-cube that are standardised by the International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO (pronounced /ˈaɪsoʊ/), is an international-standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on 23 February 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary industrial and commercial standards. It has its (ISO). These can be loaded and sealed intact onto container ships Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport, railroad cars A flatcar is a piece of railroad rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck on four or six wheels or a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK). The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads. Flatcars designed for carrying machinery have sliding chain, planes A fixed-wing aircraft, usually called an airplane, aeroplane or plane, is an aircraft capable of flight using forward motion that causes air to pass over its wings to generate lift. Planes include jet engine and propeller driven vehicles propelled forward by thrust, as well as unpowered aircraft . Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from ornithopters, and trucks A truck or lorry (British English) is a motor vehicle, more specifically a commercial vehicle commonly used for transporting goods and materials. Some light trucks/lorries are similar in size to a passenger automobile. Commercial transportation trucks/lorries or fire trucks can be large, and can also serve as a platform for specialized equipment.

Contents

History

A container ship Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport being loaded by a portainer crane in Copenhagen Copenhagen ; Danish: København (pronounced [kʰøb̥ənˈhaʊ̯ˀn] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,167,569 (2009) and a metropolitan population of 1,875,179 (2009). Copenhagen is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager Harbour Twistlocks A twistlock and corner casting together form a standardised rotating connector for securing shipping containers. The primary uses are for locking a container into place on container ship, semi-trailer truck or railway container train; and for lifting of the containers by container cranes and sidelifters which capture and constrain containers. Forklifts A forklift is a powered industrial truck used to lift and transport materials. The modern forklift was developed in the 1920s by various companies including the transmission manufacturing company Clark and the hoist company Yale & Towne Manufacturing. The forklift has since become an indispensable piece of equipment in manufacturing and designed to handle containers have similar devices.

The introduction of containers resulted in vast improvements in port handling efficiency, thus lowering costs and helping lower freight charges and, in turn, boosting trade flows.[citation needed] Almost every manufactured product humans consume spends some time in a container.[dubious – discuss]

Origins

Although having its origins in the late 1780s or earlier, the global standardisation of containers and container handling equipment was one of the important innovations in 20th century logistics Logistics is the management of the flow of goods, information and other resources, including energy and people, between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of consumers . Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material-handling, and packaging, and.

By the 1830s, railroads Track consists of steel rails running on sleepers/ties and ballast. Sometimes there is also a signalling system and sometimes an electrification system. The rolling stock, fitted with metal wheels, moves with low frictional resistance when compared with road vehicles, and can be coupled into long trains on several continents were carrying containers that could be transferred to trucks or ships, but these containers were invariably small by today's standards. Originally used for shipping coal on and off barges, 'loose boxes' were used to containerize coal from the late 1780s, on places like the Bridgewater Canal The Bridgewater Canal is a canal in North West England that connects Runcorn, Manchester, and Leigh. It was commissioned by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, to transport coal from his mines in Worsley to Manchester. It was opened in 1761 from Worsley to Manchester, and later extended from Manchester to Runcorn, and then from Worsley to. By the 1840s, iron boxes were in use as well as wooden ones. The early 1900s saw the adoption of closed container boxes designed for movement between road and rail.

In the United Kingdom, several railway companies were using similar containers by the beginning of the 20th century and in the 1920s the Railway Clearing House The British Railway Clearing House was an organisation set up to manage the allocation of revenue collected by numerous pre-grouping railway companies. These companies all operated their own railway lines, but gained revenue from fares charged for passengers and goods travelling over the lines of more than one company standardised the RCH container. Five or ten-foot long, wooden and non-stackable, these early standard containers were a great success but the standard remained UK-specific.

From 1926 to 1947, in the US, the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railway carried motor carrier vehicles and shippers' vehicles loaded on flatcars A flatcar is a piece of railroad rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck on four or six wheels or a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK). The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads. Flatcars designed for carrying machinery have sliding chain between Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the largest city in Wisconsin and 23rd most populous in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. Its estimated 2008 population was 604,477. Milwaukee is the main cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee–Racine–Waukesha Metropolitan Area with a and Chicago, Illinois Chicago ( /ʃɨˈkɑːɡoʊ/ or /ʃɨˈkɔːɡoʊ/) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Illinois, and with more than 2.8 million people, the 3rd largest city in the United States. Located on the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan and next to Indiana, Chicago is the third-most densely populated major city in the U.S., and anchor to the world'. Beginning in 1929, Seatrain Lines SeaTrain Lines was a shipping company most responsible[citation needed] for the introduction of the standard international intermodal container, most commonly 8-foot high by 8 feet wide by 40-foot long. This ignited an explosion in world trade, though the ups and downs in that trade made it very difficult for companies to ride the business carried railroad boxcars A boxcar (the US term; other terms include "goods van" , "louvre van" (Australia), "covered wagon" (UIC and UK) or just "van" (UIC and UK)) is a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry general freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is probably the most versatile, on its sea vessels to transport goods between New York and Cuba. In the mid-1930s, the Chicago Great Western Railway and then the New Haven Railroad began "piggy-back" service (transporting highway freight trailers on flatcars) limited to their own railroads. By 1953, the CB&Q, the Chicago and Eastern Illinois The Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad was a Class I railroad that linked Chicago to southern Illinois, St. Louis, and Evansville. Founded in 1877, it grew aggressively and stayed relatively strong throughout the Great Depression and two World Wars before being purchased by the Missouri Pacific Railroad (MP, or MoPac) and the Louisville and and the Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad (1865-1885) and Southern Pacific Company (1885-1969), and usually simply called the Southern Pacific, was an American railroad. The railroad was founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the Central Pacific Railroad by lease. By 1900, the Southern 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 trailer service.

Toward the end of World War II, the United States Army The United States Army is the branch of the United States Military responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military and is one of seven uniformed services. The modern Army has its roots in the Continental Army which was formed on 14 June 1775, before the establishment of the began using specialized containers to speed up the loading and unloading of transport ships. The army used the term "transporters" to identify the containers, for shipping household goods of officers in the field. A "Transporter" was a reusable container, 8.5 feet (2.6 m) long, 6.25 feet (1.91 m) wide, and 6.83 feet (2.08 m) high, made of rigid steel with a carrying capacity of 9,000 pounds. During the Korean War The Korean War is a war between North Korea and South Korea (Republic of Korea, ROK) that started on 25 June 1950 and paused with an armistice signed 27 July, 1953. To date, the war has not been officially ended through treaty, and occasional skirmishes have been reported in the border region the transporter was evaluated for handling sensitive military equipment, and proving effective, was approved for broader use. Theft of material and damage to wooden crates, in addition to handling time, by stevedores Stevedore, docker, dock labourer and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country at the Port of Pusan Busan Metropolitan City, also known as Pusan is the largest port city in South Korea and the fifth largest port in the world. Busan has a population of about 3.6 million. It is South Korea's second largest metropolis, after Seoul. The city is located on the Southeasternmost tip of the Korean Peninsula and faces the Korea Strait. The most densely,[citation needed] proved to the army that steel containers were needed. In 1952 the army began using the term CONEX, short for "Container Express". The first major shipment of CONEXes (containing engineering supplies and spare parts) were shipped by rail from the Columbus Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Muscogee County, Georgia, United States, with which it is consolidated. In 2008, its estimated population was 186,984. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Georgia metropolitan area, which, in 2008, had an estimated population of 287,653. It joins with the Auburn, Alabama metropolitan area to form General Depot in Georgia to the Port of San Francisco The Port of San Francisco lies on the western edge of the San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate. It has been called one of the three great natural harbors in the world, but it took two long centuries for navigators from Spain and England to find the anchorage originally called Yerba Buena. A port, as was said in its early days, in which all the, then by ship to Yokohama Yokohama ( listen (help·info)) is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshū. It is a major commercial hub of the Greater Tokyo Area, Japan, and then to Korea, in late 1952. Shipment times were cut almost in half. By the time of the Vietnam War The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a Cold War military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from September 26, 1959 to April 30, 1975. The war was fought between the communist North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of South Vietnam, supported by the United States and other the majority of supplies and materials were shipped with the CONEX. After the U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to national security and the military. The organization and functions of the DOD are set forth in Title 10 of the United States Code standardized an 8'×8' cross section container in multiples of 10' lengths for military use it was rapidly adopted for shipping purposes.[1][2]

These standards were adopted in the United Kingdom for containers and rapidly displaced the older wooden containers in the 1950s.[citation needed]

Even the railways of the USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (help·info), tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, IPA [sɐˈjʊs sɐˈvʲeʦkʲɪx səʦɪ had their own small containers. [3]

Purpose-built ships

Containers waiting at the South Korean port of Busan Busan Metropolitan City, also known as Pusan is the largest port city in South Korea and the fifth largest port in the world. Busan has a population of about 3.6 million. It is South Korea's second largest metropolis, after Seoul. The city is located on the Southeasternmost tip of the Korean Peninsula and faces the Korea Strait. The most densely. Main article: Container ship Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport

The first vessels purpose-built to carry containers began operation in Denmark in 1951. In the U.S. ships began carrying containers between Seattle Seattle (pronounced /siːˈætl/ ( listen), us dict: sē·ăt′·əl) is a major seaport located in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Situated in the western part of Washington state on an isthmus between Puget Sound (an arm of the Pacific Ocean) and Lake Washington, about 100 miles (160 km) south of the Canada – United States and Alaska in 1951. The world's first truly intermodal container system used the purpose-built container ship the Clifford J. Rodgers, built in Montreal Montreal (pronounced [mɔ̃ʁeˈal] (help·info) in French, /ˌmʌntriˈɑːl/ (help·info) in English) is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie ('City of Mary'), the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose in 1955 and owned by the White Pass and Yukon Route The White Pass and Yukon Route (reporting mark WPY) is a Canadian and U.S. Class II narrow gauge railroad linking the port of Skagway, Alaska with Whitehorse, the capital of Canada's Yukon Territory. An isolated system, it has no direct connection to any other railroad. Equipment, freight and passengers are ferried by ship through the Port of. Its first trip carried 600 containers between North Vancouver There are two municipalities in the Greater Vancouver region of British Columbia, Canada, that use the name North Vancouver. These are:, British Columbia British Columbia ( ˌbrɪtɨʃ kəˈlʌmbiə ) (BC) (French: la Colombie-Britannique, C.-B.) is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ("Splendour without Diminishment"). In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada and Skagway, Alaska Skagway is a first-class borough in Alaska, on the Alaska Panhandle. It was formerly a city first incorporated in 1900 that was re-incorporated as a borough on June 25, 2007. As of the 2000 census, the population of the city was 862. However, the population doubles in the summer tourist season in order to deal with more than 900,000 visitors, on November 26, 1955; in Skagway, the containers were unloaded to purpose-built railroad cars A railroad car or railway carriage is a vehicle on a rail transport system that is used for the carrying of cargo or passengers. Cars can be coupled together into a train and hauled by one or more locomotives. Passenger cars can be self propelled in which case they can be single or multiple units for transport north to the Yukon Yukon , (or The Yukon), is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River, Yukon meaning "Great River" in Gwich’in, in the first intermodal Intermodal freight transport involves the transportation of freight in an intermodal container or vehicle, using multiple modes of transportation , without any handling of the freight itself when changing modes. The method reduces cargo handling, and so improves security, reduces damages and losses, and allows freight to be transported faster service using trucks, ships and railroad cars. Southbound containers were loaded by shippers in the Yukon, moved by rail, ship and truck, to their consignees, without opening. This first intermodal system operated from November 1955 for many years.

The U.S. container shipping industry dates to April 26, 1956, when trucking entrepreneur Malcom McLean Malcom Purcell McLean (November 14, 1913 – May 25, 2001), born in Maxton, North Carolina, was an American entrepreneur, often called "the father of containerization". In 1956, he developed the metal shipping container, which replaced the traditional break bulk method of handling dry goods and revolutionized the transport of goods and put 58 containers aboard a refitted tanker ship, the Ideal-X SS Ideal-X was the first container ship. It was an unconverted World War II T-2 oil tanker which carried shipping containers. On its maiden voyage on April 26, 1956, the Ideal X carried 58 containers from Newark, New Jersey to Port of Houston, Texas, where 58 trucks were waiting to be loaded with the containers, and sailed them from Newark Newark is the largest city in New Jersey, and the county seat of Essex County. Newark has a population of 281,402, making it the largest municipality in New Jersey and the 65th largest city in the U.S. Newark is also home to major corporations, such as Prudential Financial to Houston Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States and the largest city in the state of Texas. As of the 2008 U.S. Census estimate, the city has a population of 2.2 million within an area of 600 square miles (1,600 km2). Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area—the.[4] What was new in the USA about McLean's innovation was the idea of using large containers that were never opened in transit between shipper and consignee In a contract of carriage, the consignee is the person to whom the shipment is to be delivered whether by land, sea or air and that were transferable on an intermodal basis, among trucks, ships and railroad cars. McLean had 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 Roll-on/roll-off ships are vessels designed to carry wheeled cargo such as automobiles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers or railroad cars that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels. This is in contrast to lo-lo (lift on-lift off) vessels which use a crane to load and unload cargo, 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 Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport or "box" ship.[5][6] (See also pantechnicon van and trolley and lift van.)

Towards standards

During the first twenty years of growth containerization meant using completely different, and incompatible, container sizes and corner fittings from one country to another. There were dozens of incompatible container systems in the U.S. alone. Among the biggest operators, the Matson Navigation Company had a fleet of 24-foot (7.3 m) containers while Sea-Land Service, Inc used 35-foot (11 m) containers. The standard sizes and fitting and reinforcement norms that exist now evolved out of a series of compromises among international shipping companies, European railroads, U.S. railroads, and U.S. trucking companies. Four important ISO (International Organization for Standardization) recommendations standardised containerisation globally[7]

In the United States, the Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887 to keep railroads from using monopolist pricing and rate discrimination on customers, especially rural Western farmers, but fell victim to regulatory capture, and by the 1960s, before any shipper could carry different items in the same vehicle, or change rates, the shipper had to have ICC approval, which impeded containerization and other advances in shipping. The United States' present fully integrated systems became possible only after the ICC's regulatory oversight was cut back (and later abolished in 1995), trucking and rail were deregulated in the 1970s and maritime rates were deregulated in 1984.[8]

Today

A converted container used as an office at a building site.

Containerization has revolutionized cargo shipping. Today, approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide moves by containers stacked on transport ships [9]; 26% of all containers originate from China.[citation needed] As of 2005, some 18 million total containers make over 200 million trips per year. There are ships that can carry over 14,500 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), for example the Emma Mærsk, 396 m long, launched August 2006. It has even been predicted that, at some point, container ships will be constrained in size only by the depth of the Straits of Malacca—one of the world's busiest shipping lanes—linking the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This so-called Malaccamax size constrains a ship to dimensions of 470 m in length and 60 m wide (1542 feet by 197 feet).[6]

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.[6]

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 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. The majority of the rail networks in the world operate on a 1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) gauge track known as standard gauge but many countries (such as Russia, India, Finland, and Spain) use broader gauges while many other 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.

ISO standard

Shipping container

Main article: Intermodal freight shipping container

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). United States domestic standard containers are generally 48 ft (15 m) and 53-ft (rail and truck). Container capacity is often expressed in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU, or sometimes teu). An equivalent unit is a measure of containerized cargo capacity equal to one standard 20 ft (length) × 8 ft (width) container. As this is an approximate measure, the height of the box is not considered, for instance the 9 ft 6 in (2.9 m) High cube and the 4-ft 3-in (1.3 m) half height 20 ft (6.1 m) containers are also called one TEU.

The maximum gross mass for a 20 ft (6.1 m) dry cargo container is 30,480 kg, and for a 40-ft (including the 2.87 m (9 ft 6 in) high cube container), it is 34,000 kg. Allowing for the tare mass of the container, the maximum payload mass is therefore reduced to approximately 28,380 kg for 20 ft (6.1 m), and 30,100 kg for 40 ft (12 m) containers.[10]

The original choice of 8 foot height for ISO containers was made in part to suit a large proportion of railway tunnels, though some had to be deepened. With the arrival of even taller containers, further enlargement is proving necessary. [11]

Air freight containers

A number of LD-designation Unit Load Device containers Main article: Unit Load Device

While major airlines use containers that are custom designed for their aircraft and associated ground handling equipment the IATA has created a set of standard container sizes, the LD-designation sizes are shown below:

Designation Width (in) Height (in) Depth (in) Base (In) Max load (lb) Max load (kg) Shape
LD-1 92.0 64.0 60.4 61.5 3500 ~1588 Type A
LD-2 61.5 64.0 47.0 61.5 2700 ~1225 Type A
LD-3 79.0 64.0 60.4 61.5 3500 ~1588 Type A
LD-4 96.0 64.0 60.4 n/a 5400 ~2449 Rectangular
LD-5 125.0 64.0 60.4 n/a 7000 ~3175 Rectangular
LD-6 160.0 64.0 60.4 125.0 7000 ~3175 Type B
LD-7 125.0 64.0 80.0 n/a 13300 ~6033 Rect. or Contoured
LD-8 125.0 64.0 60.4 96.0 5400 ~2449 Type B
LD-9 125.0 64.0 80.0 n/a 13300 ~6033 Rect. or Contoured
LD-10 125.0 64.0 60.4 n/a 7000 ~3175 Contoured
LD-11 125.0 64.0 60.4 n/a 7000 ~3175 Rectangular
LD-29 186.0 64.0 88.0 125.0 13300 ~6033 Type B

LD-1, -2, -3, -4, and -8 are those most widely used, together with the rectangular M3 containers.

Load Securing in containers

Application in container

Polyester Strapping and Dunnage Bag application

Polyester Lashing Application

There are many different ways and materials available to stabilize and secure cargo in containers used in all modes of transportation. Conventional Load Securing methods and materials such as steel banding and wood blocking & bracing have been around for decades and are still widely used. Present Load Securing methods offer several, relatively new and unknown options that have become available through innovation and technological advancement including polyester strapping and -lashing, synthetic webbings and Dunnage Bags, also known as air bags or inflatable bags.

Issues

Increased efficiency

Although there have been few direct correlations made between containers and job losses, there are a number of texts associating job losses at least in part with containerization. A 1998 study of post-containerization employment at United States ports found that container cargo could be moved nearly twenty times faster than pre-container break bulk.[12] The new system of shipping also allowed for freight consolidating jobs to move from the waterfront to points far inland, which also decreased the number of waterfront jobs.

Additional fuel costs

Containerisation increases the fuel costs of transport and reduces the capacity of the transport as the container itself must be shipped around not just the goods. For certain bulk products this makes containerisation unattractive. For most goods the increased fuel costs and decreased transport efficiencies are currently more than offset by the handling savings.[citation needed] On railway the capacity of the container is far from its maximum weight capacity, and the weight of a railcar must be transported with not so much goods. In some areas (mostly USA and Canada) containers are double stacked, but this is usually not possible in other countries.

Hazards

Containers have been used to smuggle contraband. The vast majority of containers are never subjected to scrutiny due to the large number of containers in use. In recent years there have been increased concerns that containers might be used to transport terrorists or terrorist materials into a country undetected. The U.S. government has advanced the Container Security Initiative (CSI), intended to ensure that high-risk cargo is examined or scanned, preferably at the port of departure.

Empty containers

Containers are intended to be used constantly, being loaded with new cargo for new destination soon after having emptied of previous cargo. This is not always possible, and in some cases, the cost of transporting an empty container to a place where it can be used is considered to be higher than the worth of the used container. Shipping lines and Container Leasing Companies have become expert at repositioning empty containers from areas of low or no demand, such as US West Coast, to areas of high demand such as China. However, damaged or retired containers may also be recycled in the form of shipping container architecture, or the steel content salvaged.

Loss at sea

Containers occasionally fall from the ships that carry them, usually during storms; it is estimated that over 10,000 containers are lost at sea each year.[13] For instance, on November 30, 2006, a container washed ashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina USA, along with thousands of bags of its cargo of Doritos Chips. Containers lost at sea do not necessarily sink, but seldom float very high out of the water, making them a shipping hazard that is difficult to detect. Freight from lost containers has provided oceanographers with unexpected opportunities to track global ocean currents, notably a cargo of Friendly Floatees.[14]

In 2007 the International Chamber of Shipping and the World Shipping Council began work on a code of practice for container storage, including crew training on parametric rolling, safer stacking and marking of containers and security for above-deck cargo in heavy swell.[15]

Double-stack containerization

Part of a United States double-stack container train loaded with 53 ft (16.2 m) containers A railroad car with a 20 ft tank container and a conventional 20 ft container

Most flatcars cannot carry more than one standard 40-foot (12 m) container, but if the rail line has been built with sufficient vertical clearance, a double-stack car can accept a container and still leave enough clearance for another container on top. This usually precludes operation of double-stacked wagons on lines with overhead electric wiring. However, the Betuweroute, which was planned with overhead wiring from the start, has been built with tunnels that do accommodate double-stacked wagons so as to keep the option to economically rebuild the route for double stacking in the future. The overhead wiring would then have to be changed to allow double stacking.[16] Lower than standard size containers are run double stacked under overhead wire in China.[17]

History

Wagons

Railways have flat wagons and gondola (rail) wagons that can hold 40' ISO containers.

Narrow gauge railways of 610 mm (2 ft) gauge have smaller wagons that do not readily carry ISO containers, such as the 30' long and 7' wide wagons of the Kalka-Shimla Railway. Wider narrow gauge railways of e.g. 1,000 mm (3 ft 3+3⁄8 in) gauge can take ISO containers.

Other uses for containers

Shipping container architecture is the use of containers as the basis for housing and other functional buildings for people, either as temporary housing or permanent, and either as a main building or as a cabin or workshop. Containers can also be used as sheds or storage areas in industry and commerce.

Containers are also beginning to be used to house computer data centers, although these are normally specialized containers. Sun Microsystems was one of the first to do this with their Sun Modular Datacenter; Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP Performance Optimized Datacenter (or POD).

Companies

Biggest ISO container companies

Top 10 container shipping companies in order of TEU capacity, 17 August 2009
Company TEU capacity[21] Number of ships
A.P. Moller-Maersk Group 2,022,956 539
Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. 1,517,200 409
CMA CGM 1,023,208 365
Evergreen Marine Corporation 594,154 162
American President Lines 531,865 135
Hapag-Lloyd 475,282 120
COSCO 469,848 146
China Shipping Container Lines 449,469 139
NYK Line 412,711 109
Hanjin Shipping 406,462 90

Other container systems

Some other container systems are:

International

Before the International Standard Container appeared, various countries had their own containers. These containers were generally small, and not able to be stacked one upon another. Clearly the idea of containerisation is not new, though the implementation of the ISO container was much better done.

Australia

Germany

BBC tracking project

Main article: The Box (BBC container)

On September 5, 2008 the BBC embarked on a year-long project to study international trade and globalization by tracking a shipping container on its journey around the world.[23][24]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Containerization

References

  1. ^ "History & Development of the Container". U.S. Army Transportation Museum. United States Army Transportation School. Retrieved: 2007-12-29
  2. ^ CONEX. Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)
  3. ^ Photos of containers in Baku
  4. ^ Marc Levinson (2006). The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton Univ. Press. p. 1. ISBN ISBN 0-691-12324-1. http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/8131.html.
  5. ^ a b Cudahy, Brian J., "The Containership Revolution: Malcom McLean’s 1956 Innovation Goes Global". TR News. (c/o National Academy of Sciences). Number 246. September–October 2006. (Adobe Acrobat *.PDF document)
  6. ^ a b c Levinson (2006), The Box.
  7. ^ Rushton, A., Oxley, J., Croucher, P. (2004). The Handbook of Logistics and Distribution Management. Kogan Page: London.
  8. ^ Postrel, Virginia (2006-03-23). "The Box that Changed the World". Dynamist.com. http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/archives/002097.html. Retrieved 2008-02-14.
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Further reading

Look up containerization or isotainer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Economy
Technique
Online
In Fiction
Intermodal containers
Overview Containerization · Intermodal freight transport · Twenty-foot equivalent unit · International Container Bureau · BIC code
Transport Container ship · Well car
Handling Container port · Container crane · Straddle carrier · Sidelifter · Rubber tyred gantry crane · Twistlock
Types Refrigerated container · SECU
Other Container Shipping Information Service · The Box · BBC Box · Sun Modular Datacenter · Shipping container architecture · Container (board game)
Rail transport freight equipment
Enclosed equipment Autorack · Boxcar (US) · Coil car · Container · Covered hopper · Covered wagon · Refrigerator car (US) · Refrigerated van (EU) · Roadrailer · Stock car · Tank car
Open equipment Flatcar · Gondola (US) · Hopper car · Open wagon (EU) · Schnabel car · Double-stack car
Non-revenue equipment Caboose (US) · Brake van (EU) · Maintenance of way cars · Scale test car · Clearance car · Crane (railroad)
Modern merchant vessels
Dry cargo Barge · Bulk carrier · Car float · Coaster · Collier · Container ship · Hopper barge · Heavy lift ship · Lighter aboard ship · Reefer ship · RORO ship · Train ferry
Tankers Oil tanker · Chemical tanker · LNG carrier · FPSO unit
Passenger Cargo liner · Cruise ship · Cruiseferry · Ferry · Train ferry · Ocean liner
Support Dive support · Fireboat · Supply ship · Tender · Tugboat
Other Cable layer · Crane vessel · Drillship · Dredger · Fishing vessel · Icebreaker · Merchant submarine · Research vessel · Semi-submersible
Sizes, smallest to largest: Handysize · Handymax · Panamax · Aframax · Suezmax · Capesize · VLCC · ULCC Other sizes: Seawaymax · Malaccamax

Categories: Commercial item transport and distribution | Container terminals | Intermodal containers | Port infrastructure

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