TIME – SPACE CONVERGENCE AND SHIPPING EXAMINE THE RELATIVE CHANGES IN THE SPEED AND CAPACITY OF OCEAN TRANSPORT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE FLOW OF GOODS, MATERIAL AND PEOPLE.

Liner shipping could lay claim to being the world's first truly global industry. Likewise it could claim to be the industry which, more than any other makes it possible for a truly global economy to work. It connects countries, markets, businesses and people, allowing them to buy and sell goods on a scale not previously possible. And as consumers, we have become used to seeing goods from all parts of the globe readily available in the stores we visit.

The exchange of capital, goods and services across international borders is known as international trade and in many countries it represents a significant share of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP.) Container ships transport approximately 60 percent of the value of seaborne trade or more than US $4 trillion worth of goods annually.

WHY SHOW SHIPPING LANES AND ROAD NETWORKS ON THE SAME MAP?

What is containerised shipping? What is intermodal transport?

Animated explanations of container shipping… liner-shipping-works/examples-animation liner-shipping-works/examples-animation

Video of an automated container port in action…

On 26 April 1956, Malcom McLean's converted World War II tanker, the Ideal X, made its maiden voyage from Port Newark to Houston in the USA. It had a reinforced deck carrying 58 metal container boxes as well as 15,000 tons of bulk petroleum. By the time the container ship docked at the Port of Houston six days later the company was already taking orders to ship goods back to Port Newark in containers. McLean's enterprise later became known as Sea-Land Services, a company whose ships carried cargo-laden truck trailers between Northern and Southern ports in the USA.

On 23 April 1966, ten years after the first converted container ship sailed, Sea-Land’s Fairland sailed from Port Elizabeth in the USA to Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 236 containers. This was the first international voyage of a container ship. The Economist recently declared that, "new research suggests that the container has been more of a driver of globalisation than all trade agreements in the past 50 years together."¹ Marc Levinson, a noted economist, suggests that the container and container shipping are largely responsible for the growth of global trade.

TEU = 20 FOOT EQUIVALENT UNIT

How does shipping compare to other modes of transport in terms of carbon footprint?

A ton of goods can be shipped from the Port of Melbourne, Australia to the Port of Long Beach, U.S.A, a distance of 12,770 kilometers (7,935 miles) while generating fewer CO 2 emissions than are generated when transporting the same cargo in the U.S. by truck from Dallas to Long Beach, a distance of 2,307 kilometers (1,442 miles). Similarly, a ton of goods can be moved from the port of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Tianjin, China, a distance of 3,327 kilometers (2,067 miles) generating fewer CO 2 emissions than would be generated if the same goods were trucked from Wuhan in Central China to Tianjin, a distance of just 988 kilometers (614 miles). The wine industry recently found that a bottle of French wine served in a New York restaurant will have a lower carbon transportation footprint than a bottle of California wine served in that restaurant. A whitepaper released for the Transport Intelligence Europe Conference states that researchers conducting an evaluation for the World Economic Forum "found that the entire container voyage from China to Europe is equaled in CO 2 emissions by about 200 kilometers of long-haul trucking in Europe. So, for most freight, which is slow moving, there is not really a green benefit to moving production to Europe."

Passenger ship traffic is not nearly as globally significant as container ship traffic. However, container sh

Oasis beats the Titanic in every dimension: the Titanic was around 46,000gt. She could carry a maximum 3547 passengers and crew, in both luxury accommodation and very cramped/basic accommodation (called steerage, because the third class was deep in the ships hull, near the rudder mechanism). In contrast, Royal Caribbean’s ‘Oasis of the Seas’, the world’s biggest class of ship (in 2009) is 225,000 gt, which is nearly five times bigger than Titanic. She can carry a maximum of 8,461 passengers and crew. In terms of length, the Titanic was 269m and Oasis is 360m. The Titanic had 9 decks, Oasis has 16

Why are many of today’s container modern container shipping not running faster than this clipper? Answer is here … ships-at-clipper-speed-run-out-of-option-to-stem-losses-freight ships-at-clipper-speed-run-out-of-option-to-stem-losses-freight

Which countries are the top exporters of container cargo?

TOP 20 EXPORTERS OF CONTAINER CARGO RankEXPORTER2009 TEUS (Millions)2010 TEUS (Millions) 1China United States Japan South Korea Taiwan Thailand Germany Indonesia Malaysia Brazil2.3 11India Vietnam Saudi Arabia Italy Turkey Netherlands Canada United Kingdom France Hong Kong World Total

Which countries are the top importers of container cargo?

TOP 20 IMPORTERS OF CONTAINER CARGO RankIMPORTER2009 TEUS (Millions)2010 TEUS (Millions) 1United States China Japan South Korea Germany Other Arabian Gulf United Kingdom Indonesia Taiwan Hong Kong Western Africa United Arab Emirates Malaysia Thailand Vietnam India Brazil Austrailia Italy Netherlands World Total