Geographical specialised multiport itineraries:

Atlantic Container Line achieves a broad market coverage not by mounting a serie of over lapping services with some main cargo generating ports as keystones like New york and Le Havre,which enjoy higher service frequency.A sub-division of the services necessitates smaller ships than would otherwise have been the case.

3/ Integrated networks:

The operating strategy is based on the interaction generated by a line's separate services,with feeder connection s not only acting as extensions at each end of the route but also linking into a route along its entire length rather like the tributaries of a river.In adopting a fully integrated network, a line can deploy a

relatively large ships,at a workable frequency,and yet requires only modest uplifts of cargo at any one port.

4/ Bulk/container operating strategy

This is another rather more sophisticated strategy that has been developed to combat the problem of heavy trade imbalance.For example,Antwerp Bulk Carriers tackles this problem by combining bulk cargoes in carrying mineral sands from Western Australia to the US Gulf.Since a return with bulk cargoes from the US Golf to Australia

are scare,additional bulk cargo plus containers are

uplifted for onward carriage to Northern Europe.The third leg,in what is basically a round-the-world service,takes containers from Europe to Eastern Australia,picking up the mineral sands in Western Australia while en route.

5/ Land bridges and minibridges

Containerization has encouraged the development of land bridges using high capacity railway links between

ports at opposite sides of land masses for onward

movement by sea or minibridges using railways to substitute for sea portion of the journey,which by far largely confined to developed countries due to the requirement of advanced rail-transport infrastructures. The United States land bridge links US east and west coast ports and is mainly for containers moving between EUROPE and Japan. This route reduces the sea transit by 7 to 12 days compared to the all— water route via the Panama Canal.

It is also used as a minibridge for cargoes from Europe destined for the US West Coast,and from Japan for the US East coast. A few lines possessing both Atlantic and Pacific services are offering this type of services.

1.A.3 The World Scale Container System: The

Round-The-World Service

Significant developments occured in the world liner shipping industry in 1984-85 with the ordering by two major shipping companies (Evergreen Container Lines and United States Lines) of very large,cellular container- ships (ranging from 2,ODD to 420D Ten) and the introduc­ tion of new global operating patterns known as the Round-the-world services. This system ofoperation may be defined as vessels which circumvigate the globe on a fix­ ed liner schedule providing services on several sectorial routes.

Basically,four major operators • are offering these services either in both or in one direction but with

different itineraries,schedules and vessels. The

introduction of an integrated global service is based upon three key considerations:

- economy of scale.

- mitigation of trade imbalances and diversification of markets;

- the increase in the size of the vessels and volumes of cargo carried permits lower unit costs to be achieved.

In operating on a circumnavigatiqnal pattern,the

round-the-world service companies are also able to limit the usual directional imbalances found in the traditional routing,thus permitting less empty haulage and high load factors per voyage.Considering their operations in the various markets for a global service,companies involved in this system are less exposed if a particular trade leg declines.

As this system has been introduced by new operators coming in with additionnal tonnage,the desequilibrium between supply and demand on many containerised liner routes has been accentuated. With the round -the -world development, liner shipping has reached the stage of pla- netatry economy .Thus,this system of transportation even though still new, may lead to a situation of oligopoly whereby few operators may dominate or eventually control several markets.

The round-the-world service is now of considerable concern to the whole shipping community.

In the developing countries with less maritime expe­ rience and less means to invest into this competitive

operational system,there is a dual feeling between the

shippers and the liner shipping companies.

These latter are afraid to reduce their operations only as feeder services to round-the-world operators.The com­ petition may largerly erode the position that these ship­ ping lines have been able to secure during this last decade on a number of routes.

For the shippers ,the introduction of round-the-world services is generally more favourable,particularly in

view of low freight rates.

This appears as a challenge not only for the continui­ ty of the existing conference system in the traditional- maritime community or the implementation of the LINER CODE OF CONDUCT (which might have helped the developing countries to benefit in terms of trade participation and by then strengthen their position in the liner shipping.

References Chapter 1

Cl :i Contanerisation in the Developing World

1970/1990 p 115

C2) Webster Third New International Dictionnary

Unabridged pp 1134.

C 3,4,5 !> SCHENDEL and HOFER;GEORGES A. STEINER;in

p. 7-18;94 -119;152-170 ; Organisation and

Management by

Fremont E. Kast / James E. Rosensweig

(6,8!) GERSTEIN & REISMAN ; Ibid.

C9) Michael Porter : Competitive Strategy ,Techni­

ques for analysing Industries and Competi­ tors, the free press- A C>ivision of Me Mi 11 an CO .Inc.

C7,ll> Containerisation International,May,1984;

"A strategic direction for the container industry" by Phillip Radzikowski. p52 /53

p 6 -13 "The developing countries and interna­ tional shipping" World Bank Staff,Working Paper no 502 Nov. 1981.

(10,12) p 15 - 218 Containerisation in the eighties

M. G. GRAHAM /D.O. HUGHES.