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A parcel is an individual
The container revolution, Dr. Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Sea History nr. 114, year 2006
Freight transport
A parcel is an individual consignment
Consignment involves selling one's personal goods (clothing, furniture, etc.) through a third-party vendor such as a consignment store or online thrift store. The owner of the goods pays the third-party a portion of the sale for facilitating t ...
of cargo
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...
for shipment. Is the unit used in the daily practice for sending and receiving all kinds of cargo
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...
. It may have all shapes and sizes. The size can range from an actual mail
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...
parcel to 100 boxes of wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from fermented grapes. Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different varieties of grapes and strains of yeasts are m ...
, with a top limit, for example, of 4 million barrels
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, u ...
cargo of oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
large enough to fill a supertanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...
.
Parcel sizes
Eachproduct
Product may refer to:
Business
* Product (business), an item that serves as a solution to a specific consumer problem.
* Product (project management), a deliverable or set of deliverables that contribute to a business solution
Mathematics
* Produ ...
has particular parcel size in which may be transported in the most economical way. This is expressed as ''parcel size distribution''. Thus, the ''parcel size distribution'' size for coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when dea ...
it's completely different from the size used for ore
Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 April 2 ...
, for grain
A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...
or for sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
.
For sea Bulk
Bulk can refer to:
Industry
* Bulk cargo
* Bulk liquids
* Bulk mail
* Bulk material handling
* Bulk pack, packaged bulk materials/products
* Bulk purchasing
*
Baking
* Bulk fermentation, the period after mixing when dough is left alone to ferm ...
transport there are given some typical parcel sizes. For coal is between 20,000 and 160,000 tons, but for the majority of cargoes parcel sizes lie between 150,000 and 60,000 tons. Iron ore is transported especially in parcel sizes of 150,000 tons, while with grain sizes are between 60,000 and 25,000 tons. When transporting sugar the most common parcel sizes are around 25,000 tons.
Maximizing parcels to the maximum possible size has helped the economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
. This has contributed to the economic growth of the use of great vessels after the World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
However, there are a number of factors that limit the parcel size :
* The stock
In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...
level;
* Available depth;
* Decreasing economies of scale in larger ships.
The transition from bulk to cargo
Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...
begins when parcel sizes smaller than the carrying capacity of a single ship. The option than is transporting several parcels together, making generally necessary the use of a container
A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping.
Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...
, then the transportation costs rise sharply. With the advent of the intermodal containers
An intermodal container, often called a shipping container, is a large standardized shipping container, designed and built for intermodal freight transport, meaning these containers can be used across different modes of transport – from ship ...
it has become possible to transport smaller parcels efficiently ( loading and unloading), the same way the cargo has also benefit from the economies of scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
that had taken place earlier in the bulk transportation.
See also
*Post Office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
*Parcel (package)
Parcel post is a postal service for mail that is too heavy for normal letter post. It is usually slower than letter post. The development of the parcel post is closely connected with the development of the railway network which enabled parcels to ...
References
{{reflistBibliography
* Stopford, M. (2009): ''Maritime economics, 3rd edition'', Routledge.The container revolution, Dr. Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Sea History nr. 114, year 2006
Freight transport