Containerisation: An Appraisal

The reasons for going in for containerised shipment were several. First and foremost, there was the attraction of having a unitised form of through‐transport which enabled us to exercise greater care over loading operations. It offered a larger measure of control, because the fragmentation into a number of different links starting from haulage operator, forwarding agent to shipping company, and again the same number of intermediaries in the country of importation, had been eliminated. The transport chain, with the introduction of the container concept, would be shortened and even if the more tangible rewards of containerisation were not always too apparent, there were at least the psychological advantages for the importer, because the new method of transport at least halved the distance between “us and them”. The bright star in the distribution firmament was that traffic flows would be greatly accelerated, and with combined cost savings and reduced damage, new markets would be opened up.