TRADE-OFFS BETWEEN OPERATIONS AND ECONOMICS IN DOMESTIC USE OF CONTAINERS

Intermodal containers, as differentiated from piggyback trailers, have proved highly useful in international trade, primarily because they eliminate the reloading of cargo at each intermodal connection and the attendant delay, cost, damage, and opportunity for pilferage. However, physical constraints make containers less-economic transportation units per se than the individual modes that they replace-- truck trailer, rail boxcar, break-bulk ship, etc. When standard intermodal containers are included in the U.S. domestic freight transportation system, their operating shortcomings outweigh any theoretical advantages that may accrue to either shippers or carriers. Such shortcomings include relatively high tare weights, limited cubic capacities, and requirements for sophisticated loading and transfer equipment. Proposals to develop and adopt a form of domestic container raise the same questions of standardization, interchangeability, and retrieval that plagued the international container industry in its early years. Further, the proposal raises the yet more-serious question of the rationality of allocating resources to develop a separate series of domestic containers that could not be interchanged with the existing fleet of more than 1.1 million international containers, with an estimated replacement value (including interface equipment) of $12.0 billion. This paper discusses the domestic operational restraints inherent in the use of international standardized containers and applies these to similar problems that might be anticipated for a variety of different domestic containers. (Author)

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • Publication of this paper sponsored by Committee on Intermodal Freight Transport.
• Authors:
  • Staley, Richard A
• Conference:
  • 59th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board
  • Location: Washington District of Columbia, United States
  • Date: 1980-1-21 to 1980-1-25
• Publication Date: 1980

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: References;
• Pagination: pp 72-74
• Monograph Title: Surface Freight: Rail, Truck, and Intermodal
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record
  • Issue Number: 758
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Alternatives analysis; Container handling; Containerization; Containers; Costs; Design; Economic factors; Freight transportation; Intermodal transportation; Loss and damage; Piggyback transportation; Standardization; Standards; Subbase (Pavements); Traffic delays
• Uncontrolled Terms: Design criteria; Subbase
• Old TRIS Terms: Container design; Container interchange; Economic considerations; Intermodal containers
• Subject Areas: Design; Economics; Finance; Freight Transportation; Highways; Marine Transportation; Railroads; Society; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00325468
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309030730
• Report/Paper Numbers: N763
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: Feb 18 1981 12:00AM