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UK container terminals and European shortsea box carriers have enough capacity to handle some 20% of Dover’s trailer traffic, should alarmist predictions of post-Brexit congestion at the ferry port materialise.
According to new research from Drewry, the cargo in some 250,000 of the 2.5m trailers that cross the Channel every year could, instead, be stuffed into containers, moved on containerships and handled at UK box terminals
“Switching to shortsea containers would be feasible for some cargo. There is available port capacity, changed ...
Comment on this article
Martyn Benson
April 03, 2019 at 2:31 pmWhere do Drewry get the idea that there is ample container supply?
If the trailer traffic is to convert to containers it will require 45′ PWHCs which are not in limitless supply and certainly not to the tune of 20% of the trailer traffic.
Above all, the container shipping operators are not going to be too happy if their precious palletwides are log-jammed in some Customs no-man’s land post Brexit.
Sorry but Drewry have under-estimated the single biggest bottleneck in their cunning plan.
Also, don’t forget that the UK is heavily imbalanced overall, so the increase of re-positioning of even more containers back to the Continent (not to the Far East) will also be a worsening of an already difficult situation.
Mike Wackett
April 05, 2019 at 8:53 amI tend to agree with you Martyn, it is not as simple as it might seem to convert trailer traffic to containers.