【正文】 ighspeed intermodal transfers in economically large units between ships, railcars, truck chassis, and barges using a minimum of labor. The container, therefore, serves as the load unit rather than the cargo contained therein, making it the foremost expression of intermodal transportation. The usage of containers shows the plementarity between freight transportation modes by offering a higher fluidity to movements and a standardization of loads. Thus, the relevance of containers is not what they are simple boxes but what they enables。 Bailey Circus used its own special train of flat railroad cars to tour cities in the United States. It took 3 to 5 hours and considerable effort to unload and load trailers, but the concept remained and piggybacking started to be adopted by railroad operators. By the 1950s piggybacking became increasingly used and a good source of ine for rail panies.Containerization however changed piggybacking to stacking and then to doublestacking where possible. Doublestacking of containers (Container on Flat Car。 l The modes of transportation being used。ADeregulationEasier contractual agreements。s largest container shipping pany. The Ideal X carried containers until 1965, when it was scrapped.Since the 1960s major efforts have been made to integrate separate transport systems through intermodalism, which took place is several stages. What initially began as improving the productivity of shipping evolved into an integrated supply chain management system across modes. This involves the use of at least two different modes in a trip from origin to destination through an intermodal transport chain. Intermodality enhances the economic performance of a transport chain by using modes in the most productive manner. Thus, the linehaul economies of rail may be exploited for long distances, with the efficiencies of trucks providing flexible local pick up and delivery. The key is that the entire trip is seen as a whole, rather than as a series of legs, each marked by an individual operation with separate sets of documentation and rates. Integrated Transport Systems: From Fragmentation to CoordinationFactorCauseConsequenceTechnologyContainerization amp。s and has since spread to integrate other modes. It is not surprising that the maritime sector should have been the first mode to pursue containerization. It was the mode most constrained by the time taken to load and unload the vessels. A conventional breakbulk cargo ship could spend as much time in a port as it did at sea. Containerization permits the mechanized handling of cargoes of diverse types and dimensions that are placed into boxes of standard sizes. In this way goods that might have taken days to be loaded or unloaded from a ship can now be handled in a matter of minutes.First Containership, IdealX, 1956On April 26th 1956, the IdealX left the Port of Newark, New Jersey to the Port Houston, Texas, which it called 5 days later. It carried 58 35feet (8 feet wide by 8 feet high) containers, along with a regular load of 15,000 tons of bulk petroleum. The 35 feet unit represented at that time the standard truck size in the United States. This first containership was converted under the initiative of Mal McLean (19142001), a trucking magnate who saw the tremendous potential of containerization, particularly in terms of loading and unloading costs. McLean calculated that in 1956 loading a mediumsized ship the conventional way was costing $ a ton. Comparatively, loading the IdealX was costing less than $ a ton. The economic advantages of such a mode of transportation thus became clear to the shipping industry. In 1960, McLean founded SeaLand, a major container shipping line, which was purchased in 1999 by Maersk, the world39。 Improve utilization to lessen capital costsAlliances and Mamp。 modal transshipment. As modity chains became more plex and longer the pressure on intermodal and transmodal transportation has increased. In this geography of transshipments connecting different parts of the transport systems, freight markets and freight forwarders are interacting with increasing efficiency. Intermodal transshipments have received the bulk of the attention, particularly their port and rail terminals segments, as massive investments in those facilities were required to set global modity chains. However, intramodal transshipments are paratively uncovered, the main reason being that until recently they mainly took place within fragmented and regulated national transport systems. The three main transmodal dimensions include: (1) Transmodal road Mainly takes place at distribution centers, which have bee strategic elements in freight distribution systems. It is probably one of the few cases where intramodal transshipments can be bined with added value activities, such as labeling and packaging. Although distribution centers were conventionally warehousing facilities in which modities could be stored while waiting to be sold to customers down the supply chain, this function has substantially receded. Time constraints in freight distribution impacted on road based distribution centers, whose function is increasingly related to transmodal operations and much less to warehousing. The true timedependent intramodal facility remains the crossdocking distribution center. (2) Transmodal maritimeShiptoship transshipments mainly concerns intermediary hubs such as in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean or shiptobarge activities. Although in many cases the containers are actually unloaded onto a temporary storage facility (monly next to the piers), an offshore hub is functionally a transmodal facility. They have emerged at intermediary locations by offering transshipment advantages in view of costs related to pendulum multiport services coupled with lower container handling cost related to transshipmentonly terminals, in addition to economies of scale for feeder ships. (3) Transmodal railProbably r