Container transport refers to the safe packing and transportation of products in standardized steel transportation boxes that are re-sealable for the safe transportation of products worldwide through railroads and by sea. Container transport uses a standardized measure of steel transportation boxes, commonly called containers, in various storage and transportation capacities generally based on containers of twenty-foot lengths.
The advantages and disadvantages of container transport.
While container transport Gold Coast provides numerous advantages to the safe shipping of products worldwide, like everything else, it also poses a few disadvantages.
The main advantages of container transport are:
- Container transport makes for easy standardization of cargo.
- Container transport is highly flexible.
- Container transport is cost-effective.
- Container transport ensures faster shipping.
- Container transport makes for easy storage or warehousing.
- Container transport is secure and safe.
Container transport makes for easy standardization of cargo.
Container transport uses standardized container sizes that can be easily handled by any transportation mode like ships, trucks, barges, flat-bed rail cars, port unloading and loading equipment, and terminals. Every container transport has its unique identification with a size type code that allows it to be easily transferred and managed between various transport types for fast delivery.
Container transport is highly flexible.
Container transport can be used to carry a wide variety of products worldwide including perishable products in specialized refrigerated container transport boxes. Highly flexible in their design for various specialized purposes, container transport can be easily adapted to carry dry cargo, different liquids, and refrigerated cargo with discarded container transport boxes easily recycled and repurposed for other purposes.
Container transport is cost-effective.
Due to the advantages of easy shipping of goods worldwide due to standardization, container transport provides lower overall transportation costs per mile compared to other shipping modes. Container transport is widely considered to be about twenty times less expensive than other conventional shipping means when moving the same amount of break-bulk freight. Container transport provides large cost-savings in economies of scale when shipping large cargo bulks compared to other shipping modes and shipment receiving terminals which were not possible through standard bulk cargo handling. The main cost-effectiveness in shipping through container transport is the result of lower inter-shipping costs between different modes of transport.
Container transport ensures faster shipping.
Trans-shipment operations through container transport are very minimal and fast with ship or rail turnaround times greatly reduced from weeks to about a day. Because of this faster shipping advantage, container transport ensures that different transport chains between points involving containers are faster with different container shipping networks well connected in their communications offering a wide range of container transport options.
Container transport makes for easy storage or warehousing.
Shipping containers can be considered as their very own warehouse that protects and secures the cargoes it contains from damage or tampering. Container transport is a simple, but very safe and secure, and less expensive transport packaging for different forms of cargoes.
Container transport is ideal for shipping consumption goods worldwide as they protect various perishable and non-perishable products from the elements, rough handling, and tampering. Using the proper container loading equipment, container yards can easily increase their storage capacity to allow for larger volumes of cargo to be stored at port or rail yards for fast loading onto ships, railroad transport, or trucks.
Container transport is secure and safe.
Container transport assures the security and safety of shipped cargoes worldwide. The security and safety of cargoes are assured as container contents are unknown to carriers with the containers only opened for loading by the shipper or when the container contents are being inspected by customs, and at the container’s destination by the consignee which ensures that cargoes are protected from spoilage, damage, and possible theft.
The shortcomings of container transport.
With container transport’s many advantages there are still things to consider when opting for them to ship cargoes worldwide. Its main drawbacks are:
- The size and space constraints of container transport.
- The capital demands for specialized equipment and infrastructure.
- The stacking complexity of container transport.
- The repositioning problems of container transport.
- Possible theft and cargo losses.
- The possibility of illicit trade.
The size and space constraints of container transport.
Container transport is a large consumer of precious terminal space for storage between trans-shipments with some large rail systems and the port problems arising from larger draft container ships requiring the need for intermodal terminals to be relocated to urban peripheries, container transport requires larger spaces to store container before they are loaded for transport or unloaded at its point of destination.
The capital demands specialized equipment and infrastructure.
Container transport can be intensive in its capital demands for specialized container handling equipment and infrastructure like the required container cranes, container forklifts, warehousing facilities, and access to important inland roads and railway terminals. Container transport requires large capital investments in available capital. Additional drawbacks to container transport on available capital are the need for additional automated systems and facilities to simplify and accelerate the shipment of containers between modes of transport and various shipping points.
The stacking complexity of container transport.
Container transport can be highly complex in the arrangement of received containers between different modes of transport and at a container storage yard. Container transport can be expected to require frequent restocking that can incur additional costs and time wasted for container transport terminal operators.
The repositioning problems of container transport.
With many receiving or trade imbalances, most containers used for container transport are moved empty with every container requiring the same amount of container yard storage space whether it is full, half-empty, or empty. With wide divergence between production and consumption across worldwide markets, container transport requires the constant repositioning of container transport assets over long distances that costs time, money, and results and possible delays in shipping.
Possible theft and cargo losses.
With plenty of high-value products with large loading units shipped daily through container shipping the possibility of containers forcefully opened or carried away by road transport can become a vulnerability of container transport between terminals and its final point of destination. Adverse weather can also be considered for possible losses in container transport as containers regularly fall overboard from ships when they are not properly secured and a container ship experiences rough sea and high wind conditions.
The possibility of illicit trade.
Rarely opened during their entire trans-shipping journey, container transport opens the possibility of illicit trade when they are unlawfully opened in-between trans-shipment points to carry illegal goods like drugs and weapons, as well as for human trafficking.
Chloe Harmon
