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Arysta LifeScience North America, an agroscience and life science product provider, has developed and deployed a returnable/reusable container tracking application in support of its new MIDAS soil fumigant product launch. The system leverages both RFID and GPS technologies to track and control returnable tanks as Arysta LifeScience mixes, fills and ships them to customers around the U.S., and will provide Arysta LifeScience with real-time visibility of finished product inventories, raw material inventories and the location of the tanks.

For the first time since mid-2008, average global container freight rates experienced a year-on-year increase in late 2009, according to a report from U.K.-based consulting firm Drewry. The Drewry Global Freight Rate Index recovered by 3% in the year to November 2009, after collapsing the first half of 2009, increasing by 18% between July and September 2009 and rising by another 6% between September and November 2009.

A new container design is set to change the economics of shipping palletised cargo, allowing cargo owners and consolidators to increase significantly the volume of cargo shipped at any one time.

Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to be up 8% in April compared with the same month a year ago, and solid increases are expected to continue through the summer as the U.S. economy improves, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and consulting firm Hackett Associates.

"Retail sales are starting to improve and retailers are importing merchandise in the quantities they need to meet that demand," says Jonathan Gold, NRF's vice president for supply chain and Customs policy. "We expect these numbers to continue to climb as merchants and their customers move away from the recession and back toward normal shopping habits."

Разработчики не оставляют попыток усовершенствовать стандартный контейнер. Рацпредложение британской Container Group Technology – контейнер, который в длину 20 футов не только снаружи, но и изнутри.

WA-owned and operated rail transport and logistics company Intermodal Group has had a record-breaking month at the North Quay Rail Terminal (NQRT) at Fremantle’s InnerHarbour, processing more than 10,000 containers for both import and export in May.

This is the highest volume recorded by the group since it commenced operations at NQRT in 2007.

Approximately 80% of volumes currently received at NQRT are transported by Intermodal’s rail service from its Forrestfield Intermodal Rail Terminal (FIT). Intermodal is the exclusive operator of the NQRT to Kewdale-Forrestfield rail corridor. The remaining 20% is from the Kalgoorlie and Kwinana line services, are operated by other providers.

Container volumes at FIT were also at record levels in May – over 8,000 containers contributed to the short haul rail shuttle service.

Containers were transported and processed predominantly on behalf of clients in the agriculture, resources and events industries.

Are the giant megaships increasing supply chain costs for everyone but the ocean carriers themselves?

That's the unfortunate situation, according to Chris Welsh, secretary-general of the European-based Global Shippers Forum, an industry lobby, who spoke at an industry conference last week. 

The growing size and number of container megaships is causing high costs and delays throughout the supply chain - costs paid for by ports, shippers, terminals and others parties, not the container lines, Welsh said.

He noted for example that there are giant traffic jams of drayage trucks at the port of Hamburg, Europe's third busiest port, the result of the average number of container moves per vessel increasing from 2,000 to 2,500 a few years ago to between 6,000 and 7,000 today. That increase in container moves per terminal stop also causes long unloading times in addition to the traffic woes and delays.

Container transport operators see positive signs from a concerted campaign to highlight the productivity, safety and export competitiveness that can be achieved by allowing Higher Productivity Freight Vehicles (HPFV) to operate at higher mass limits on Victorian roads.

On behalf of its clients in Victoria, Container Transport Alliance Australia (CTAA) has been at the forefront of advocating for change. “We are starting to see results from these concerted efforts,” said CTAA director Neil Chambers.

A successful industry meeting held in late March 2015 with the new Victorian Minister for Roads & Ports, Hon. Luke Donnellan, led to the Minister’s office renewing efforts with VicRoads to identify key freight routes that can accommodate greater road mass limits.

A clear official policy statement on wider access for HPFV has yet to be announced by the Andrews government. Despite this, however, industry is encouraged that some access applications are being approved for the use of HPFV in 40’ x 40’ container configurations on the broader road network at mass limits higher than 68.5 tonnes.

A “revolutionary new container handling system”, aimed at easing the increasing problem of port congestion, is being launched at a technical demonstration in Shanghai at the end of November.

Designated ‘BLOK-BEAM’, the system enables six containers to be lifted and transported as one single block, largely using existing port infrastructure.

Managing director of BLOK-BEAM Ltd John Evans said: “Now that ships are able to deliver around 20,000 20FT containers on one vessel, and the cranes to service them can lift up to 100 tonnes at a time, it is the ports which, in spite of their improved efficiency, have become the focus of attention in ship-to-shore movement.”

Maersk set the standard for the world's largest container ship by TEU capacity when its first "Triple E" vessel set sail from as Asia to Europe in 2013. The new generation of Maersk ships can hold a little over 18,000 TEU, and Maersk ordered some 20 of them in total from South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding - the first of its container ships that Maersk did not construct itself.

But the Triple E's title as largest ship on the seas didn't last long, as in December the new CSCL Globe from Hong Kong-based China Shipping Container Lines - capable of holding 19,000 TEU - set sail, arriving in the UK port at Suffolk this week. The ship is 400 meters long, and is said to have the capacity to move 300 million tablet computers. If the containers it can hold were laid end to end, they would stretch on for an incredible 72 miles.

But the CSCML Globe itself will hold the top spot for an even shorter period than the Triple E did. Soon to set sail in its first voyage is the MSC Oscar, which is capable of carrying about 120 more containers than the new CSCL ship.

Where will it end? Industry experts say there are designs on the table for ships capable of carrying perhaps 22,000 TEU.