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Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers and ISO containers) made of weathering steel. The containers have standardized dimensions. They can be loaded and unloaded, stacked, transported efficiently over long distances, and transferred from one mode of transport to another—container ships, rail transport flatcars, and semi-trailer trucks—without being opened. The handling system is completely mechanized so that all handling is done with cranes and special forklift trucks. All containers are numbered and tracked using computerized systems. The system, developed after World War II, dramatically reduced transport costs, supported the post-war boom in international trade, and was a major element in globalization. Containerization did away with the manual sorting of most shipments and the need for warehousing. It displaced many thousands of dock workers who formerly handled break bulk cargo. Containerization also reduced congestion in ports, significantly shortened shipping time and reduced losses from damage and theft. == Origin == Before containerization, goods were usually handled manually as break bulk cargo. Typically, goods would be loaded onto a vehicle from the factory and taken to a port warehouse where they would be offloaded and stored awaiting the next vessel. When the vessel arrived, they would be moved to the side of the ship along with other cargo to be lowered or carried into the hold and packed by dock workers. The ship might call at several other ports before off-loading a given consignment of cargo. Each port visit would delay the delivery of other cargo. Delivered cargo might then have been offloaded into another warehouse before being picked up and delivered to its destination. Multiple handling and delays made transport costly, time consuming and unreliable.〔 Containerization has its origins in early coal mining regions in England beginning in the late 18th century. In 1766 James Brindley designed the box boat 'Starvationer' with 10 wooden containers, to transport coal from Worsley Delph (quarry) to Manchester by Bridgewater Canal. In 1795, Benjamin Outram opened the Little Eaton Gangway, upon which coal was carried in wagons built at his Butterley Ironwork. The horse-drawn wheeled wagons on the gangway took the form of containers, which, loaded with coal, could be transshipped from canal barges on the Derby Canal, which Outram had also promoted.〔Ripley, David (1993). ''The Little Eaton Gangway and Derby Canal'' (Second ed.). Oakwood Press. ISBN 0-85361-431-8.〕 By the 1830s, railroads on several continents were carrying containers that could be transferred to other modes of transport. The Liverpool and Manchester Railway in the United Kingdom was one of these. "Simple rectangular timber boxes, four to a wagon, they were used to convey coal from the Lancashire collieries to Liverpool, where they were transferred to horse-drawn carts by crane."〔Essery, R. J, Rowland. D. P. & Steel W. O. ''British Goods Wagons from 1887 to the Present Day''. Augustus M. Kelly Publishers. New York USA. 1979 Page 92〕 Originally used for moving coal on and off barges, "loose boxes" were used to containerize coal from the late 1780s, at places like the Bridgewater Canal. By the 1840s, iron boxes were in use as well as wooden ones. The early 1900s saw the adoption of closed container boxes designed for movement between road and rail. On 17 May 1917 Benjamin Franklin Fitch inaugurated exploitation of the experimental installation for transfer of the containers called the demountable bodies based on his own design in Cincinnati, Ohio in US. Later in 1919, his system was extended to over 200 containers serving 21 railway stations with 14 freight trucks. In 1919, Stanislaw Rodowicz, an engineer, developed the first draft of the container system in Poland. In 1920, he built a prototype of the biaxial wagon. The Polish-Bolshevik War stopped development of the container system in Poland. In 1926, a regular connection of the luxury passenger train from London to Paris, Golden Arrow/Fleche d'Or, by Southern Railway and French Northern Railway, began. For transport of passengers' baggage four containers were used. These containers were loaded in London or Paris and carried to ports, Dover or Calais, on flat cars in the UK and “CIWL Pullman Golden Arrow Fourgon of CIWL” in France. At the Second World Motor Transport Congress in Rome, September 1928, Italian senator Silvio Crespi proposed the use of containers for road and railway transport systems, using collaboration rather than competition. This would be done under the auspices of an international organ similar to the Sleeping Car Company, which provided international carriage of passengers in sleeping wagons. In 1928 Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) started regular container service in the northeast United States. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 in New York and the subsequent Great Depression, many countries were without any means of transport for cargo. The railroads were sought as a possibility to transport cargo, and there was an opportunity to bring containers into broader use. Under auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris in Venice on September 30, 1931, on one of the platforms of the Maritime Station (Mole di Ponente), practical tests were done to assess the best construction for European containers as part of an international competition. In the same year, 1931, in USA Benjamin Franklin Fitch designed the two largest and heaviest containers in existence anywhere at the time. One measured 17'6" by 8'0" by 8'0" with a capacity of 30,000 pounds in 890 cubic feet, and a second measured 20'0" by 8'0" by 8'0", with a capacity of 50,000 pounds in 1,000 cubic feet.〔 In November 1932 in Enola the first container terminal in the world was opened by PRR Pennsylvania RailRoad company.〔 The Fitch hooking system was used for reloading of the containers.〔 The development of containerization was created in Europe and the US as a way to revitalize rail companies after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which had caused economic collapse and reduction in use of all modes of transport 〔 In 1933 in Europe under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce the International Container Bureau (French: ''Bureau International des Conteneurs'', B.I.C.) was established. In June 1933, the B.I.C. decided on obligatory parameters for containers used in international traffic. Containers handled by means of lifting gear, such as cranes, overhead conveyors, etc. for traveling elevators (group I containers), constructed after July 1, 1933. Obligatory Regulations: * Clause 1.—Containers are, as regards form, either of the closed or the open type, and, as regards capacity, either of the heavy or the light type. * Clause 2.—The loading capacity of containers must be such that their total weight (load, plus tare) is: 5 metric tons for containers of the heavy type; 2.5 metric tons for containers of the light type; a tolerance of 5 percent excess on the total weight is allowable under the same conditions as for wagon loads.〔 In April 1935 BIC established second standard for European containers:〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Containerization」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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