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Container Logistics

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Re: Container Logistics

#11

Post by jcranmer »

superice wrote: post #8
superice wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly interesting to me, yeah. I’m not going to lie, I have 25 pages of a book sitting around in my Google Drive, but I quickly realized two things: 1) this will be the most boring book in existence, and requires a much better writer than me to make for an interesting read. And 2) lots of my knowledge is specific to the European situation, which can sometimes be wildly different. The shipping industry can…

Actually, I had this write-up lying around which I wrote for somebody involved in building a container terminal simulation game: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQYtBzhkogHUvn2z... It's pretty specific to terminals, but it's a decent introduction.

I noticed on your section on inland terminals that there's no mention of rail-based terminals, which is interesting because that is the dominant form of inland terminal I think about. Are they rare in Europe (or, equivalently, are they unusually common in the US), or is this just something that you're not familiar with?

Re: Container Logistics

#12

Post by nullstyle »

superice wrote: post #8
superice wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly interesting to me, yeah. I’m not going to lie, I have 25 pages of a book sitting around in my Google Drive, but I quickly realized two things: 1) this will be the most boring book in existence, and requires a much better writer than me to make for an interesting read. And 2) lots of my knowledge is specific to the European situation, which can sometimes be wildly different. The shipping industry can…

Actually, I had this write-up lying around which I wrote for somebody involved in building a container terminal simulation game: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQYtBzhkogHUvn2z... It's pretty specific to terminals, but it's a decent introduction.

Super interesting. Thank you for this link and your posts above!

Re: Container Logistics

#13

Post by superice »

jcranmer wrote: post #11
superice wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I had this write-up lying around which I wrote for somebody involved in building a container terminal simulation game: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQYtBzhkogHUvn2z... It's pretty specific to terminals, but it's a decent introduction.

I noticed on your section on inland terminals that there's no mention of rail-based terminals, which is interesting because that is the dominant form of inland terminal I think about. Are they rare in Europe (or, equivalently, are they unusually common in the US), or is this just something that you're not familiar with?

Yes, this is definitely my personal experience shining through: my primary experience is with inland terminals which predominantly handle barges. In the Rhine-delta (the Rotterdam/Antwerp hinterland) this is much more common than rail terminals, although trimodal (barge/rail/truck) are on the rise. Most hinterlands however don't have fine mazed rivers and canals suitable for water transport like The Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium have, so in other areas of the world (notably the US) rail-based inland terminals are a lot more common.

But inland terminals are an entirely different beast from sea terminals due to the scaling I mentioned. Area scales quadratically, but quay side or rail length scales linearly. This means larger sea terminals have lots of trouble managing an efficient flow of containers onto and from the ships. Inland terminals, both barge and rail, are often not constrained by this in and out flow, but have more natural constraints like the total amount of containerizable goods transported in the geographic area they serve.

The biggest difference is probably what parts of the transport inland terminals are responsible for. In The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany I've noticed that often inland terminals act as hinterland operators, also taking responsibility for the barge or train leg, and usually also last mile trucking to the customer. Sea side terminals tend to not do this nearly as much.

So TL;DR: yes, rail is the dominant form basically everywhere except the area where I happen to live and work. But no, both rail and barge inland terminals are very similar in many respects, but are quite different from sea side terminal operations.

EDIT: Actually, just to clarify, I have a lot more experience with inland terminals than sea side terminals. But because the typical container terminal problems (berthing, stacking, equipment assignment etc.) are so much less of an issue with the smaller scale of inland terminals, they only get a very short mention in my document. There really is no berthing problem if you handle 2 barges a week, there is no equipment assignment problem if you have a single crane and a single reachstacker, and there is no real stacking problem if you can ask a trucker to walk around and spot their assigned box between the ~300 boxes you currently have. Typically the biggest issue for inland terminal operations is the transport planning from and to the sea side terminals, and that is similar for both barge and rail terminals.

Re: Container Logistics

#14

Post by CalChris »

superice wrote: post #3

Expert here: I'm a consultant for small to medium size container terminals and various hinterland container logistics operations. This article is a pretty good introduction to the subject, but could go further into the economic interests at play here. If you book at a shipping line, there is really a tree of companies being engaged to work. There are two empty depots involved for empty pickup and delivery. The contai…

They may be more efficient for the shipping line but do the 20,000 TEU behemoths (ULVC) exacerbate the problem?

Re: Container Logistics

#15

Post by sleavey »

superice wrote: post #3

Expert here: I'm a consultant for small to medium size container terminals and various hinterland container logistics operations. This article is a pretty good introduction to the subject, but could go further into the economic interests at play here. If you book at a shipping line, there is really a tree of companies being engaged to work. There are two empty depots involved for empty pickup and delivery. The contai…

What happens when the fees due on collection get so high that the importer / final delivery company / final customer changes their mind about collecting the container? Who has to store and ultimately dispose of the contents? Do they get to auction it off and keep the proceeds?

Re: Container Logistics

#16

Post by superice »

sleavey wrote: post #15
superice wrote: post #3

Expert here: I'm a consultant for small to medium size container terminals and various hinterland container logistics operations. This article is a pretty good introduction to the subject, but could go further into the economic interests at play here. If you book at a shipping line, there is really a tree of companies being engaged to work. There are two empty depots involved for empty pickup and delivery. The contai…

What happens when the fees due on collection get so high that the importer / final delivery company / final customer changes their mind about collecting the container? Who has to store and ultimately dispose of the contents? Do they get to auction it off and keep the proceeds?

I have no clue, never have heard of that happening, but then again, I never bothered to ask. I suspect that customs issues would be the more common use case to not actually want to pick up a container though.

The fees are not usually due on collection, but as part of the contract between shipping line and shipper. Not picking up the container probably does nothing to get you out from under that contract.

Re: Container Logistics

#17

Post by superice »

CalChris wrote: post #14
superice wrote: post #3

Expert here: I'm a consultant for small to medium size container terminals and various hinterland container logistics operations. This article is a pretty good introduction to the subject, but could go further into the economic interests at play here. If you book at a shipping line, there is really a tree of companies being engaged to work. There are two empty depots involved for empty pickup and delivery. The contai…

They may be more efficient for the shipping line but do the 20,000 TEU behemoths (ULVC) exacerbate the problem?

Yes and no. Yes because you can't run a ship carrying some containers on a certain line as often, which means that the wait after missing a ship is likely going to be bigger. But also no because fundamentally the problem of having 10 delayed 2000 TEU ships is not that different from 1 ship of 20,000 TEU. Not to mention that ships only got about 2x bigger over the past 20 years, so the numbers I just pulled out of my ass are quite arbitrary.

More smaller ships would give a bit more flexibility, but I don't think it's an easy fix for the current problems.

Re: Container Logistics

#18

Post by wombatpm »

sleavey wrote: post #15
superice wrote: post #3

Expert here: I'm a consultant for small to medium size container terminals and various hinterland container logistics operations. This article is a pretty good introduction to the subject, but could go further into the economic interests at play here. If you book at a shipping line, there is really a tree of companies being engaged to work. There are two empty depots involved for empty pickup and delivery. The contai…

What happens when the fees due on collection get so high that the importer / final delivery company / final customer changes their mind about collecting the container? Who has to store and ultimately dispose of the contents? Do they get to auction it off and keep the proceeds?

Containers get auctioned off if not paid for eventually. There was program like Storage Wars but focused on shipping containers.

Re: Container Logistics

#19

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

capableweb wrote: post #9
mdorazio wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love to see a business flow diagram of how all this works and which parties are responsible at each step. The deeper I look into the shipping process the more complex and grift-oriented it seems to get.

> The deeper I look into the shipping process the more complex and grift-oriented it seems to get. The more industries I start to get deeper into, the more I realize this applies to almost every single industry, no matter size or for how long it's been around. Industries seems get into "extract as much money from as many parties as possible" really quickly.

Isn't that the definition of capitalism? Part of my duties in IT is to minimize costs with vendors. Sometimes simply asking (or demanding) a reduction is all it takes. Try that with your car insurance... I bet you can get $10 - $20 a month knocked off.

Re: Container Logistics

#20

Post by mdorazio »

superice wrote: post #8
superice wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly interesting to me, yeah. I’m not going to lie, I have 25 pages of a book sitting around in my Google Drive, but I quickly realized two things: 1) this will be the most boring book in existence, and requires a much better writer than me to make for an interesting read. And 2) lots of my knowledge is specific to the European situation, which can sometimes be wildly different. The shipping industry can…

Actually, I had this write-up lying around which I wrote for somebody involved in building a container terminal simulation game: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQYtBzhkogHUvn2z... It's pretty specific to terminals, but it's a decent introduction.

Thank you for posting this - it's exactly the level of explanation I was looking for. And if you want to write a book with lots of factual information that isn't completely boring, you might want to try doing it in the style of Cadillac Desert which explains California's water management system by following the history of the people and organizations that built it.
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