The maritime industry has been transformed by more than 50 years of containerization since the
first containerized maritime shipment set sail from Port Newark, New Jersey in 1956. It does not
come as a surprise that maritime transportation was the first mode to pursue containerization
since it is the most constrained by loading and unloading operations. Containerization permits the
mechanized handling of cargoes of diverse types and dimensions that are placed into boxes of
standard size. Thus, non standard traffic that would have required significant and labor intensive
transshipment activities becomes standardized with time consuming and costly stevedoring
reduced. Instead of taking days to be loaded or unloaded, cargo can now be handled in a much
shorter time period as a modern container crane can accommodate about two movements per
minute. The most common container is 40 foot in length, the equivalent of two TEUs6. Separate
transport systems are becoming integrated by intermodal transportation, where each mode tends
to be used in the most productive manner. Thus, the line-haul economies of maritime shipping
can be combined with the hinterland access provided by rail and trucking. The entire transport
sequence is now seen as a whole, rather than as a series of stages, which is changing the role and
function of freight forwarders, transport companies, terminal operators and third party-logistics
providers7.