Maritime Transport System

In this section, you will learn more about the maritime transport system. You will get to know the activities that drive this system and the goods that are transported on waterways. You will then be introduced to the vessels used for transportation. In addition, the infrastructure of the waterways and its port facilities will be explained. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of maritime transport will be highlighted.

Maritime transport is often responsible for the main carriage of goods and therefore for the long distance transport and is a part of a multimodal transport chain. 
Multimodal transport describes the carriage of goods by two or more modes of transport.
Is the movement of goods in one and the same loading unit, e.g. container, or a vehicle by successive modes of transport without handling of the goods themselves when changing modes, it is called intermodal transport.
Combined transport is an intermodal transport where the major part of the European journey is by rail, inland waterways or sea and any initial and/or final legs carried out by road are as short as possible.

The figure "Maritime transport" shows the leg of the maritime transport and the two ports with their hinterlands.

On this page, the element "Activities" of the conceptual system model of transport and traffic will be presented to you.

The next element of the conceptual system model deals with the types of goods, being typically transported with the presented mode of transport. We will show you on this page, what types of goods are typically transported by maritime transport.

• bulk cargo, 
• container cargo and 
• roll on / roll off cargo. 

For the transport of goods, the figure "Load carrying devices" shows, what different kinds of loading devices can be used. Those load carrying devices can be differentiated in the categories supporting, enclosing and locking.

 

 

 

• The first three letters are showing the owner of the container.
• The fourth letter shows the product category, the U stands for container.
• The first six numbers are the serial number of the container.
• The last number is the check digit.

• shipowning company provides container
• forwarding company provides rented container or
• shippers own container (SOC)

• volume of freight has sufficient volume for a complete container load
• shipper organizes loading and securing
• containerized transport at least to the port of destination 

• volume of freight has insufficient volume for a complete container load
• transport of container part load to Container freight station (CFS)
• consolidation and transport to the port of destination
• LCL service surcharges due to additional handling processes

• uniformly unit load (standard size, reusable, stackable)
• high velocity of transhipment process
• internationalization
• reduction of packaging
• suitable for all means of transport
• suitable for inland and overseas transport

The total costs per TEU are shown in the figure "Total costs per TEU" and are composed of three different elements costs at sea, operating costs and capital costs and costs at the ports.

Transport

• operational business
• maintenance/survey/storage/supply of vessels
• accounting and market intelligence/viewing
• retail and other business

• Handling of door-to-door transport by carrier on behalf of client.
• Approximately 2/3 of the worldwide transport.

• Independent handling of pre- and subsequent-leg by shipper/recipient or by forwarder on behalf of shipper.
• Normally only pier-to-pier transport.
• The shippers/consignees themselves remain in control and subcontract all involved transport operators. If it's necessary also pier-to-door or door-to-pier transport is possible.

 

 

In the maritime transport system model, the movables are called "Vessels". These vessels are presented to you on this page.

The figure "Vessel types" shows a classification of different vessel types, that are used in maritime transport. Some of the vessels are presented to you in detail below.

 

• capacity: < 4.500 TEU
• length: 250 m
• width: < 32,20 m
• depth: 12,5 m

• capacity: > 4.000 TEU < 8.500 TEU
• length: 300 m
• width: > 32,20 m < 43 m
• depth: 13 m 

• capacity: < 12.500 TEU
• length: 366 m
• width: < 49 m
• depth: 15,2 m

• capacity: < 15.000 TEU
• length: 397 m
• width: < 56 m
• depth: 15,5 m

• capacity: < 21.000 TEU
• length: 400 m
• width: < 59 m
• depth: 16 m

•  capacity: > 21.000 TEU, < 24.000 TEU
• length: 400 m
• width: < 61 m
• depth: 16 m

• required engine power increases with the power of 0.7
• less material needed for the surface of bigger spaces

• crew size independent from the size of the vessel (for a capacity bigger than 2.000 TEU)
• no correlation between administrative costs and vessel size

• bunker costs are related to the engine power, thus relative costs are declining with increasing size.

• lower freight rates through economies of scale lead to strong market growth

• bigger ships have to unload more containers at one location
• many ports are not equipped to handle those amounts efficiently

• limitations to the maximum draught
• efficiency of hinterland logistics

• liner services consist of 5-6 ships
• financing can become quite problematic, as this means investments of up to one billion € per service

• increasing costs through additional handling operations
• longer travel times for the feeders through additional handling operations

The total costs of costs in port and costs at sea are presented in the figure "Relationship between costs and ship size". 

Ro-Ro Vessels

Ro-Ro Vessels (Roll-on Roll-off) vessels are used for the transport of movable goods. Those goods like cars, trucks or trains can roll on and roll off the vessels on their own. With the help of tractors or swap bodies standardized loading units can be transported with this vessel type as well. Those ships have decks with adaptable heights, allowing a flexible usage of the loading space. The vessels have side, bow or stern hatches so that the movables can be driven on board via ramps.

• capacity: up to 40.000 dwt (Deadweight tonnage)

• capacity: up to 45.000 dwt

• capacity: up to 99.999 dwt
• width: < 32,20 m 

• capacity: over 100.000 dwt

• capacity: 50.000 dwt

• capacity: 65.000 – 80.000 dwt

• capacity: 120.000 - 180.000 dwt

• capacity: 200.000 – 320.000 dwt

• capacity: >320.000 dwt

Multi Purpose Ships are able to carry different kind of goods like containers, bulk goods or general conventional cargo. 

As the multi purpose ships are often not calling at big ports, multi purpose ships are having loading gears (cranes) on board so that they are independent from the existing infrastructure at the ports.

 

 

The relation between vessels and waterways is called traffic. 

 

Traffic

The main trade routes are between Asia and Europe and Asia and North America, with the volume from Asia to the industrialised countries twice as high as the other way around. 

As there is an imbalance of trade especially between Far East and Europe and Far East and the USA, maritime traffic is not in a balance. In maritime container traffic, for example, this trade imbalance necessitates the repositioning of empty containers.
In order to save fuel and reduce emissions in maritime traffic, vessels are reducing their speed. As a rule of thumb, a ship’s engine load is related to the third power of its speed. Numerically, a 10% speed reduction results in a 27% engine load reduction.
The main maritime traffic routes and dimension of the traffic volume, which is visualized by the arrow thickness, are shown in the figure "Maritime traffic routes".

 

 

The next element of the conceptual system model is called infrastructure. In case of the maritime transport system, the infrastructure is called "Waterways".

Waterways are the infrastructure, the vessels are using to travel from Port A to Port B. There are approximately 200 narrow bodies of water connecting two larger bodies of water (straits) or canals around the world. A handful of them are known as chokepoints, which means, this waterway could be blocked and stop the maritime transport by accidents or political reasons. 

 

• Panama Canal
• Suez Canal
• Cape of Good Hope
• Gibraltar
• Bosporus
• Strait of Hormuz
• Bab el-Mandab
• Strait of Malacca

Land use 

To check your knowledge about the maritime waterways, feel free to answer the following question before moving on to the element ports.

The facilities in the maritime transport system are called ports and will be presented to you on the following page.

 

 

 

 

• packing hall
• empty container depot 
• maintenance hall

 

Accession

Literature
Brinkmann, Birgitt (2005): Seehäfen. Planung und Entwurf. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

Flämig, H., Sjöstedt, L., Hertel, C. (2002): Multimodal Transport: An Integrated Element for Last-Mile-Solutions? Proceedings, part 1; International Congress on Freight Transport Automation and Multimodality: Organisational and Technological Innovations. Delft, 23 & 24 May 2002.  (modification of Sjöstedt 1996)

Schönknecht, A. (2009): Maritime Containerlogistik. Leistungsvergleich von Containerschiffen in intermodalen Transportketten. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg (VDI-Buch).

Talley, W.  (2009): Port economics. 1. publ. London: Routledge.

In order to sum up this section, the advantages and disadvantages of the maritime transport system are presented to you on this page.

Advantages

• ability to carry high capacity of weight at low freight rates
• large loading space
• supply of special ships

• inflexibility
• dependency on weather conditions (storm, hurricane, ice,...)
• in line dependency on fixed route using container line services

 

Biebig, P.; Althof, W.; Wagener, N. (2008): Seeverkehrswirtschaft: De Gruyter Oldenbourg.