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How did the container revolution impact Europe?

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In the category of intermodal, this solution discusses how the container revolution impacted Europe. Response validated through research. References provided in APA format.

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How did the container revolution impact Europe?

Although not everyone agrees, the container revolution impacted Europe in several ways:

Malcom McLean began the process, who invested himself of the trucking company that he had founded in his native North Carolina to buy a ship company and transport truck trailers by sea. Containerization is a transportation technology that loads packaged cargo?what maritime shippers called "break-bulk cargo"?into standardized steel containers capable of intermodal carriage on ships, trains, and trucks. By international agreement, the containers are standardized at 8 feet wide, 8 to 8 1/2 feet high, and 20 or 40 feet long. A twenty-foot container constitutes one TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit), while forty-foot units are FEUs. Fifty years ago, there were no standard containers and only a few experimental types in service. In 2005, the world's seventy-seven busiest container ports passed 297 million TEUs in and out, and this does not count the rail and road traffic in TEUs around the world. Since 1982, container volume has risen on average by 9.9 percent annually. Ships and ports have been transformed to accommodate a seemingly insatiable appetite for the movement of containers and their cargoes (Roland, 2007).

Most (but not all) would agree that containerization has lowered the cost of moving manufactured goods over long distances and increased trade, including in Europe Some attribute the savings to reduced labor costs of cargo-handling at dockside. Some add the savings realized by reduced pilferage and breakage. And some think that the most important savings come from reduced capital costs to ship-owners. Because container ships load and unload in a fraction of the time required by conventional cargo vessels, the container ships spend more time at sea earning revenue and less time in port idle. The result is that goods can be shipped globally from almost any manufacturer to almost any consumer for essentially negligible transportation costs. Some commentators assert?without much reliable data?that transportation costs of container shipping average one percent of retail price (Roland, 2007).

McLean's roots in the trucking industry informed his vision of containerization and intermodal transportation. Whether the container revolution caused globalization or e.g. "the container bred globalization," or just opened the doors for globalization, it had a huge impact on Europe through increased global trade. The efficiencies of containerization bred more trade. According to Levinson, containerization, "permit[ted] a worldwide economic restructuring" (Levinson, 2006, p. 276). At another point he says that the container lowered the risk of just-in-time manufacturing, "opening the way ...

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