Common Types Of Cargo Transportation Services & Their Key Benefits
Cargo transportation services are vital things to consider while planning shipping methods. You should evaluate the cargo shipping urgency, the value of the goods shipped with the weight and size of goods besides the cost, while finding the transport type to ship cargo. In the article, we help you know the right transport type for the freight and the cargo!
Also, there are many tools to get the right freight estimates. Let’s look at the different heavy load cargo transportation services and what they offer.
Ocean Cargo
The seaborne trade accounts for around 90% of the world trade, and as per the UNCTAD, around 1687 shipping firms carried about million tonnes (in 2015) in 177.6 million containers with 998 billion ton-miles (IN 2016). Due to the volume or size, many cargo transportation services are not seen as economically infeasible to ship through transport modes other than the sea.
A less costly method to ship goods is sea freight, but it is known for its drawback of long transit time. However, the key benefit is that weight and size are not an issue, unlike air freight. Firms use sea freight cargo transportation services amply to ship bulk goods like farm goods (maize, soy, wheat, etc.), coal, iron ore, or wet bulk goods like petrol and crude oil. Also, odd-shaped large items like propellers and engines can ship with this mode based on the delivery needs.
Sea cargo is also a good cargo transportation service to ship heavy loads and high cargo like metals, minerals, steel coils, ores, etc. You cannot move this much load with freight shipping.
Also, firms emphasize more on the environmental shipping impact. An air freight goods shipping service emits many gasses polluting less space than sea cargo services making them more eco-friendly with more load capacity.
Main Sea Freight Benefits
When you consider using sea freight, you will surely make a wise decision. Here are some of the benefits of using sea freight shipping shown below:
- It is ideal for many goods with longer lead times.
- It ships large loads. An ultra-large single container ship carries 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).
- It is the most eco-friendly one among all transport modes
- It is an economical option. Liner shipping is among the best ways to transport goods
- Has extensive worldwide coverage
- Has different carrier options to transport
Air Transport Cargo
Over the next 15 years, as the GDP grows, more demand for high-value goods will be. As per the 2016-2017 world air cargo forecast, there will be proportional growth in the value per ton of total traded goods globally. The world air cargo traffic predicts an average growth of 4.2 percent annually to meet the growing cargo transportation services demand.
Air freight is a vital transportation mode as it serves supply chains and markets with speed. Among the best examples are the ones of 1997 when Apple started innovating on nitty-gritty details of supply-chain management. Most computer makers shipped goods by sea cargo transportation services, a cheaper method than air freight.
Steve Jobs took the benefit of air freight with an advanced strategy. He paid $50 million to buy all holiday air freight space to ensure that new blue translucent iMacs are available widely in the Christmas season, making them better than their rivals. Other freight transportation services like retail and automotive use air freight to get “just-in-time” (JIT) inventory fulfillment. With JIT options, stores and production lines can place order fulfillment based on the demand. It offers more flexibility with less stock and warehouse costs.
Also, short-time stocks like flowers, foods, and other medical goods benefit from the short transit time. A great benefit of air freight cargo transportation services is that they handle less cargo, so the chances of theft or damage are low with air mode.
But, it has many negative aspects like it is the costliest due to the need for speed and the fuel.
Also, there are size and weight limitations for air-based US cargo transportation services. Authorities limit what firms can or cannot ship by air, like large or odd-looking items that are easy to ship with other cargo transportation services.
What Are The Key Air Cargo Benefits
Here are some of the key benefits of using Air freight shipping:
- Less need to handle cargo
- Fast transit
- Less documentation
- Dependable departures and arrival
- Better cargo safety
Rail Cargo
Another ‘green’ cargo transport mode is rail. Trains consume less fuel per ton-mile than road transport. A train with less than 100 wagons only needs a single driver. However, other rail cargo transportation services cost: you need a road delivery at each rail-transit end. You would need a lift cost for cargo container transport services between the road and train vehicle. On average, long road journeys are less expensive than rail, and shorter ones are less costly than the road. The cost point neutrality is based on factors like goods and routes, but it is anywhere from 130 to 150 miles.
The first cargo train with ISO freight containers arrived from China in the Rotterdam port in 2015 in 18 days against the normal 44 odd sea days.
The movement of containerized cargo from China rail to logistics, Europe hubs like the Netherlands, and the EU was a great step to getting more trade between the two continents. It encouraged MNCs like Ricoh and HP to use the Europe-China route for supplying their goods.
The manager of European Transport at Ricoh notes that when one sets good planning, the rail is among the quickest cargo transportation services and takes less than 20 days to reach China. Also, the rail has some benefits like all containers are shipped to the location at once, and it is environment friendly as the train emits less CO2, unlike planes.
Main Benefits Of Rail Cargo
Read below to know the benefits of using a rail cargo service:
- Get perfect schedules and transit times.
- Railroads are efficient land transport forms. On-train hauls up to 400 trucks.
- Get cost-effective and fast deliveries at long distances, generally up to 500 miles.
- Rail cargo has a great safety record.
- It is to alleviate road congestion and lower emissions.
Road Freight Shipping
Road freight is the most common across all cargo transportation services. It is used perfectly in continents like Europe, North America, and Africa and its single custom document process offers seamless goods movement across different countries and states.
Benefits Of Road Cargo Over Others
Here is the list of benefits that you can get while using a road cargo service over other:
- Is cost-friendly
- Scheduled and fast delivery
- Local over the border, short and long delivers in the rural region
- Flexible services
- Packing is cost-saving than other transport modes
- Trace and track the truck and cargo
- Door-to-door service is among the most budget-friendly cargo transport methods.
However, truck transport is limited, and what it carries has weight and size limitations. Another problem is that road conditions, traffic, and weather can affect it.
Multimodal Transport
A great option to look for is multimodal solutions – utilizing more than a transport. Multimodal is a mix of transport modes like road, rail, air, and sea to let the customer get cost-effective shipments from the beginning to the end while ensuring the right efficiency and care.
Another example is the cross-rail network region with the truck. Many shipping firms offer such cargo transportation services solutions along the Silk Road route of China. The service offers savings of up to 65% versus the air freight costs while offering transit times of up to 40% faster than the standard ocean movements.
Sea-air is another benefit of multimodal cargo transportation services. It is more budget-friendly than air and faster than ocean service. Another ocean or air solution is the sea-air service which offers global transport industry cost and time savings with eco-friendliness. Sometimes with such cargo transportation services, you avoid demurrage fees.
Main Multimodal Shipping Benefits
We have listed some benefits of using a multimodal freight shipping service:
- Shipping firms can move cargo to any part of the world with various transport modes.
- It lowers goods distance with different transport modes
- Lessens goods distance between the consumer and the manufacturer
- Customers deal with a single entity to handle all transport modes in one paper
- It is cost-saving and efficient
Conclusion
There are various choices to move goods, and more than one solution is there for shipping needs. All cargo transportation services have their benefits and disadvantages. To prioritize the needs, know the comparison costs when planning the shipments, and select the most suitable transport mode. Student of Knowledge LLC is the leading expert in cargo shipping and cargo transportation services and offers the most versatile shipping solutions to firms of all types. We are all-around shippers of freight, cargo, and parcel and offer the most up-to-date shipping technologies and sustainable cargo shipping resources.
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