Analysis of problems with containers as intermodal loading unit

Abstract

Current growth of freight flows between world economical regions determines increasing growth of the use of containers. This is not only the case of maritime transport. Containers are used in road as well as in rail transport. So they can be assumed as the most versatile type of loading units being in use all over the world, assuring interoperability between different transport modes. On the other hand, such a wide usage of containers and its suitability for almost any type of goods creates a lot of problems that first of all arise from the requirements of different logistics chains Simply saying, during the last few decades, all over the world evolved a lot of types of containers with different technological features. This in turn could become a significant problem for interoperability of different transport modes and real obstacle for the development of efficient intermodal transportation chains. Moreover, besides these technical problems, we still have an unsolved problem with organization of empty containers trips that significantly affects efficiency of logistics chains too. Keeping in mind all the mentioned facts, the main purposes of this paper are as follows: - presentation of brief historical overview of container development; - submission of the brief analysis of the current state of the world container market (at the same time highlight main advantages of this technology and problems of their usage as ILU in the transportation chains); - description of the problems related with the empty containers trips; - introduction of explorations regarding future trends of container's, as the most favourable ILU, development.