What is container transportation?

On the road of modern cities, you can often see some big trucks with a huge rectangular iron box behind them; On some docks, these large iron boxes are often neatly stacked and hoisted by giant cranes to large cargo ships. What's the use of these big iron boxes?

It turns out that these large iron boxes are called containers, and their shells are made of steel, which are specially used to transport goods that are easily crushed or deformed during transportation. Containers have internationally unified specifications and dimensions. Container truck transportation is usually 6.096 meters long and 2,438 meters wide and high. This is because the United States, the first country to develop container transportation, has a maximum allowable truck width of 2.438 meters, which was gradually adopted by various countries. In addition to this standard specification, there are 9. 14m and 12.2m super-large containers. ..

The appearance of containers greatly improves the transportation efficiency of goods and can bring huge economic benefits. According to statistics, compared with cargo ships with the same displacement, the annual transport capacity of container ships will be increased by six times. Under normal circumstances, it takes 3 minutes for a container to be loaded, and each standard container can hold 20~30 tons of goods, so it can hold 400~600 tons per hour; The traditional "bulk" loading method can only load about 35 tons per hour, and the efficiency between them is very different. As early as 1956, an American container tanker only sailed for three months, and the freight rate of this route was reduced from about $6 per ton to $0/5 per ton/kloc. Since then, container has attracted great attention and started to develop rapidly in the world.

As early as the beginning of the19th century, it was envisaged to improve transportation efficiency in the form of containers, but this wish was not realized until the 1950s. Why is this? It turns out that the development of container transportation involves many related facilities and equipment, such as the need for large transport vehicles that can carry containers; After the container is transported to the dock, it should be piled up in a wide and solid place, and special lifting equipment is needed for lifting and handling; The special container ship is different from the general cargo ship, and its hull needs to be particularly wide, and the deck size should be designed to be suitable for container placement. Many container ships also have cabins, large cranes and other special equipment that is convenient for lifting. It can be seen that container transportation is gradually developed on the basis of the great development of automobile industry, lifting machinery industry and shipbuilding industry. Moreover, the investment in container transportation is very large, which requires a large-scale advanced transportation network and special equipment.

Container transportation is suitable for long-distance cargo transportation, especially for intercontinental cargo transportation. Therefore, shipping is the main way of container transportation, and transshipment and combined transportation can be realized on a global scale by organizing container fleets.