Yes, there are corridors between the stacks to allow access to the containers. And you’re proposing to get rid of them and just make one huge, contiguous block of boxes, yes?
Not all those containers are empty (I’d actually expect most of them to be full if we’re seeing historically high import volumes). Even if the boxes were empty, they wouldn’t be fungible. They belong to different shipping companies, there are different types of containers, and even within the same type they have different ratings in terms of being foodgrade, maximum weight, etc. Sometimes they’re also rented, which can affect priorization and where you want to send them.
But the biggest problem I see is that not all the empties at the port can be in the same place, because there are many ships docking at different quays, and the containers to be loaded must be pre-stacked (in a specific order) before the ship arrives, to make the operation fast and efficient.
It’s an interesting idea though, I’m sure some amount of improvement is possible.
Not all those containers are empty (I’d actually expect most of them to be full if we’re seeing historically high import volumes).
I would expect that high import volumes result in the containers being empty after unloading and then the empty containers are stuck somewhere and have to be dealt with because not enough containers get exported again?
Yes, there are corridors between the stacks to allow access to the containers. And you’re proposing to get rid of them and just make one huge, contiguous block of boxes, yes?
Not all those containers are empty (I’d actually expect most of them to be full if we’re seeing historically high import volumes). Even if the boxes were empty, they wouldn’t be fungible. They belong to different shipping companies, there are different types of containers, and even within the same type they have different ratings in terms of being foodgrade, maximum weight, etc. Sometimes they’re also rented, which can affect priorization and where you want to send them.
But the biggest problem I see is that not all the empties at the port can be in the same place, because there are many ships docking at different quays, and the containers to be loaded must be pre-stacked (in a specific order) before the ship arrives, to make the operation fast and efficient.
It’s an interesting idea though, I’m sure some amount of improvement is possible.
I would expect that high import volumes result in the containers being empty after unloading and then the empty containers are stuck somewhere and have to be dealt with because not enough containers get exported again?