Intermodal transportation isn’t as seemingly complicated or mysterious as its name can make it sound. As a form of widespread transportation, it essentially refers to transporting a particular set of goods in an intermodal container with the use of two or more different modes of transit. The term “intermodal” by itself explicitly refers to transportation using two or more methods to move freight. As a whole, intermodal transit has a consistently increasing number of benefits to consider for your time, budget, and efforts when shipping freight loads around the largest ports in the US and elsewhere.
Among the top benefits of intermodal transit are lowering costs for global consumers and economies, speeding up free trade, and reducing the carbon dioxide impacts on the environment compared to other means of transportation. While there are several options to choose from to efficiently and effectively fulfill your shipping requirements, the main goal is to achieve the lowest possible price while maintaining the best possible shipments and customer service.
The particular modes of transportation involved in intermodal transit can include, among them, trucks and rail. However, trucks and rail lines aren’t the sole means of transit that parties can involve in a portion of a given intermodal transportation trip. In this article, we’ll discuss the different types of intermodal transportation used in or around the largest ports in the US and more around the world on a daily basis. We’ll also discuss where you can find some of the best intermodal transportation services in the US and the benefits of using Heavy Weight Transport for your intermodal transit.
What Are the Different Types?
A given intermodal transportation trip drivers can engage daily can fall into four essential categories. These basic categories include rail, truck, sea, and air. A drayage truck can easily transport various steel intermodal containers. A drayage truck is most often the first mode of transportation relied upon to achieve a given intermodal transit trip. In this way, drayage trucks help the entire transportation process get underway. In addition, these trucks are also most often the final mode of transit used by drivers to handle a freight load on its way to its last delivery location. Aside from drayage trucks, trains are another highly profitable means of transportation within intermodal transit. The trains used to haul various loads of freight can effectively transport many hundreds of steel intermodal containers across thousands of miles. These trains can carry these numerous containers these vast distances with low transportation costs.
While drayage trucks and trains are among the most common and beneficial forms of intermodal transportation, only air and sea modes of freight transportation have the potential to move containers across bodies of water and between different continents. One specific example of a potential intermodal transportation trip is moving a given cargo load from Munich, Germany to Singapore. In this example, a truck will likely bring an empty shipping container to pick up your cargo load. Once the involved parties load the container in Munich, the truck will probably take the shipping container to a rail yard to transport it to Hamburg, Germany. At this point, the container transfers to a container ship. Your shipping carrier takes full responsibility for your shipment until it effectively reaches Singapore. At its destination in Singapore, a new shipping truck will pick up the freight container and deliver it to the consignee, and the container undergoes unloading.
Intermodal Transportation at the Largest Ports in the US
As regards the most critical US ports, the current most sizeable port in America by container volume continues to be the Port of Los Angeles, followed by the Port of New York and New Jersey, Long Beach, Savannah, Houston, Virginia, Seattle-Tacoma, Charleston, Oakland, and Miami. The Port of Los Angeles continues to rank as the largest North American port by container size for over two decades, owing to its record volumes of containerized trade. This same port currently ranks as the 17th most busy container port in the world. It has 43 miles of waterfront, 116 miles of rail, and 25 cargo terminals. This primary California gateway currently handles 20% of all cargo entering the US. Ports in general, and especially these top 10 owing to their consistently high shipping container volumes, play a critical role in global shipping and logistics. Their crucial role in worldwide shipping and logistics involves high levels of daily intermodal transportation to achieve global consumer and economic goals.
Over 95% of containerized cargo entering the United States enters by ships. Over 360 commercial ports around the nation work to effectively transport these ranging goods to their various destinations throughout communities across the US. Having a deeper understanding of the role of US ports in helping the nation’s residents can help you more effectively make beneficial decisions for any involved businesses and the near-port communities. As vital transport hubs to facilitate goods movement to local companies in their given area, ports connect consumers to goods using the domestic marine highways, regular highway system, air transit, and railroads. The ports themselves include seaports in addition to inland and smaller intercoastal ports to facilitate movement and shipping efficiency.
Use Heavy Weight Transport for Intermodal Transportation
As intermodal transport plays an essential role in global shipping movement and efficiency, it’s highly imperative and widely impactful to make the right decisions when it comes to who you partner with. Whether you are involved in a business that takes part in freight shipping, or you have a career involving freight shipping and transportation, working with the right intermodal transport business can have considerable impacts on your revenue or compensation, time and cost efficiency, and range of benefits. Heavy Weight Transport can provide your business or career efforts with the highest levels of quality, efficiency, and value. With our multi-axle chassis fleet, warehousing near major US port areas, and overweight cargo shipping capability, we can provide you with some of the best benefits. Connect with us today!