 |
Long-haul over the road trucking moves to centre stage in Covid-19 and coming post-Covid-19 North America
There's much talk worldwide about rail freight reducing reliance on trucking, but even in Europe where such views are amplified, the truck intrudes before any door-to-door trek is done - often twice.
Such anti-truck enthusiasms are more muted in North America, where railways, unlike those in Europe, are more extensive than intensive. That is to say, there are typically hundreds of miles between where railways go and where cargo wants go.
Thus, the truck, most often the long-haul truck, is needed to take freight from distribution centres to the many distant and wide apart retail outlets in the vast consumer-rich North American hinterland. And now with the worldwide surge of ecommerce, this is doubly so.
|
 |
Questioning value of gender diversity at sea when a band of brothers must in crisis be a band of siblings
Gender equality at sea has been getting another airing in light of the lack of crew changes in the Covid-19 crisis, making seafarers de facto prisoners in their ships at sea and in port.
"Dramas and even tragedies are taking place on board of merchant ships worldwide - dramas which remain unheard and unknown to public," says Mikhail Voytenko, publisher of Kiev's Maritime Bulletin, which specialises in marine casualties.
Mr Voytenko is not alone. British maritime charity Seafarers UK has called on the United Nations agency, the International Labour Organisation (ILO), to keep track of suicides at sea because of Covid-19 lockdowns.
|
 |
Container shipping: The way we were, the way we are - and the way ahead in years to come
With the first encounter of a standard transatlanic shipping container in 1968, the words "container revolution" sprung to mind by all who beheld the possibilities.
The arrival of the 500-TEU fully cellular Manchester Challenge from Liverpool in Montreal, a gearless Liberty Ship-sized vessel, amazed waterfront veterans.
Twenty dockers took an hour to shift 20 tons of breakbulk cargo from ship to shore back then. In containers, it took three minutes as the gantry crane lifted the box from the hold and set it down on a waiting truck to be taken away.
|
 |
Cargo continues to migrate from west coast as east coast dredging opens doors to mega ships
A frequent commentary on North American shipping has been the incremental shift of Asian cargo volumes from the west to the east coast.
This trend appears to be accelerating as a new factor - evident for some time - has become more pronounced in recent months and likely to become more so as demand on east coast container facilities from Montreal to Miami rises while fortunes languishs from Seattle to LA.
This trend is accompanied by a parallel development with a greater use of the Suez Canal to reach the US east coast at the expense of the Panama Canal.
|
|
|
|
