Containers are the standard form of freight carrying ‘boxes’ used to transport goods generically, i.e. on ships, trains as well as flatbed trucks, in large quantities over long distances. Every kind of freight, from raw materials to finished goods (like heavy pallets, electronics, canned goods etc) is shipped in containers, and this is the standard norm for shipping.
One of the main jobs of a freight forwarding company is booking containers or container-space for their clients. This market is highly dynamic; with delays and under/ over bookings at the last moment, shipping companies constantly update freight forwards with information regarding availability and pricing so that their transporters operate on maximum capacity without carrying dead weights or empty cargo spaces. The routs could be diverse and require the use of any or all of railways, semi-trailer trucks and ships. In fact, many freight forwarders specialize in end-to-end shipment of goods, using a variety of ways to transport containers across oceans and overland, involving, at times, multiple carriers for each leg of a journey (especially in the case of long distance international shipments).
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Types of containers and sizes
All over the world, shipping containers are ISO standardized in five size-categories relating to their length. The standard basic size for a container is 20 feet in length and 8 feet in width, and is called the 20 foot container. Other types include the 40, 45, 48 and 53 foot containers with the same width of 8 feet. For overland domestic transportation, the US and Canadian trucking industry and rail freight industry use the 48 and 53 foot containers.
The capacity of any standard container is mentioned in terms of units called ‘twenty-foot equivalent units’ – or ‘TEU’, which is the standard capacity of the 20 foot container (20X8). Height is not a factor in this unit measure as it is only considered to be an approximate measure, however, the height also comes in categories: these are the standard 20 foot container, the high cube container (with a height of 9 feet 6 inches) and the half height container (with a height of 4 feet 3 inches), and they would all be considered in terms of the same 20 foot equivalent units, regardless of this height.
Types of container loads
FCL
Full container Load; this is the booking and occupation of a whole container space, i.e., the full capacity of the container. This means that the weight or space of capacity of the container has been filled to the maximum allowable limit. It depends upon the weight and the dimensions (the density) of the cargo. No matter what it weighs, the total weight must not exceed the maximum allowable limit and no matter what it measures (in terms of cubic feet), it must fall below the maximum volume capacity of the container. In the FCL case, only one consignee is involved. The exporter is charged according to the FCL rates.
LCL
If an exporter wishes to pack into one container, the consignments of more than one recipient (consignee) located at the same destination port, the terms used for the shipment are LCL and the LCL rates are charged per consignment. In this case, multiple containers are usually used to pack the different consignments separately as well.
A consignment of shipment may involve both FCL and LCL packing arrangements at the same time.