Intermodal Transportation

Intermodal Transport of Goods

Beginning from the 1940s, intermodal transportation has established itself chiefly in the goods transport sector by virtue of two technological innovations: the pallet and the container. The pallet is a platform made of wood, synthetic material, or metal and moved by lifting trolleys, on which packages ready for shipping are piled up. The modern pallet was first employed by the U.S. Army during World War II, and within a short time it became the indispensable logistic device for speeding up the shipping of large amounts of goods. Beginning from the 1960s on, the size of pallets has progressively been standardized by the Organization for Standardization to enable transport by various means: In Europe, where goods are generally carried by road, the most commonly used pallet measures 800 × 1,200 mm; in the United States, the standard dimension is 1,000 × 1,200 mm; in Asia, pallets measure 1,100 × 1,100 mm.

The container consists of a metal box designed for carrying goods by land, sea, and air. In the United States, the earliest containers, known as “lift vans,” came into use in the 1910s. In Europe, the earliest systematic use of containers goes back to the 1920s. Traditionally, however, the age of containers begins in 1956, the year in which an American entrepreneur had the idea of converting a tanker into a container-carrying ship. As with the pallet, containers’ sizes have been progressively standardized, first by the U.S. Department of Defense and later by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). At present, the two most common standards are the ISO 20’ (6,058 × 2,438 × 2,591 mm) and ISO 40’ (12,192 × 2,438 × 2,591 mm).

[Page 278]Pallets and containers have brought about the establishment of two prevailing forms of transport. The first, chiefly employed for medium distances, contemplates the carrying of containers on a road semitrailer to the nearest railway station. From here the container will travel on a special train carriage to the station nearest to its destination, where it will be again loaded onto a road semitrailer and taken to its final destination. The second, chiefly used for long distances, consists of the transport of a container (by road or rail) up to a shipping port, where it is loaded onto a ship and taken to a port near its destination, from which (still by road or rail) the container will be transferred to its final destination.

In both cases, thanks to pallets and containers, intermodal transportation enables the shipping of goods without handling them again after they have been loaded onto the container at the place of production or shipping. The absence of intermediate handling reduces damage risks, lowers shipping costs, and increases the speed of delivery.

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