Discovering Maritime Transportation

1
Discovering Maritime Transportation
2
Significance of the Industry

• Transport roughly 14 of total national freight
• 26.5 of total domestic ton-miles
• Employ close to 200,000
• Average compensation 47,000

3
General Service Characteristics

• Commodities Hauled
• Dry bulk (coal coke) 28.3
• Petroleum ( related) 24.4
• Food farm 14.4
• Chemicals 8.4
• Iron ore, iron steel 4.7
• All other 19.8

4
General Service Characteristics

• Length of Haul
• Internal carriers average haul 482 miles
• Great Lakes carriers average 508 miles
• Coastal average 1652 miles
• Load Size
• Barges normally transport 1000 1500 tons (max
  capacity 3000 tons)
• Equivalent to 16 railcars or 60 trucks
• Great Lakes carriers average 20,000 tons

5
General Service Characteristics

• Low-Cost Service
• Primary advantage
• Lowest cost mode for shipment of non-liquid
  products (1997 averages below)
• Barge per-ton fees 0.73
• Rail per-ton fees 2.40
• Truck per-ton fees 26.12
• Oil pipelines per-ton fees 1.37

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General Service Characteristics

• Speed of Service
• Transit time longest of the 4 modes that move
  non-liquids
• Speeds average between 5 10 miles per hour
  (upstream vs. downstream)
• Service Disruption
• Ice
• Hurricanes

7
Types of Vehicles

• Tanker
• Largest ship in domestic water industry
• 18,000 50,000 tons
• Barge
• Most commonly used vessel by internal waterway
  carriers
• Powerless (towed by a tugboat)
• 1500 3000 tons

8
Terminals

• Most often provided by the public
• Local government agencies operate ports and
  storage facilities
• Some private firms invest in own terminals
• Grain, coal, oil
• Containerization critical