http://www.momentumtransport.com en-us CuteNews http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268406931&archive= Car freight being transported down the Nile river? The Nile has been the life blood of the economy of Egypt for thousands of years and the life of the people and history of the region have both been written by the ability of man to use the river to bring the freight the people needed to survive to destinations along the Nile.

The Nile has been left to flounder for a few decades while most of the money for freight infrastructure in Egypt has been put into other areas. The Nile is about to make a comeback of a sorts as one of the major routes for the movement of river freight in the world. The Egyptian government has plans to revitalise the freight carrier industry along the river by developing a series of river ports that will make the job of shipping cars to destinations along the Nile river and regions to which the river connects easier to manage.

The plans at the present moment have only reached the tendering stage of the process of port development along the Nile river, but at the present moment they have stated a desire to build a network of six ports. The announcement of the desire to build a network of river ports along the Nile river to help revitalise the river freight industry that use to flourish along the Nile as early as three decades ago is great news for the people and regions along the river. If things improve enough people should be able to afford to buy more cars and we'll see more cars moving down the Nile river on the way to destinations in the interior of the region.

The development of a port network along the Nile is going to work hand in hand with the infrastructure investments the Egyptian government and their business partners have made in the ocean ports of Egypt in the past decade. In the years to follow the volume of freight being moved along the Nile is going to come back to old levels and probably beyond and this is a good thing to see.

http://www.xing.com/net/egypt/news-249716/the-nile-23937922/
http://www.worldcargonews.com/htm/t20100219.339172.htm]]> 1268406931 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:15:31 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268406590&archive= Car carrier vessels can get rather huge; I ran into this article from Spain on the massive car hauler Fidelio coming to port. It’s owned by one of the bigger car transport shipping firms which shall rename nameless here. It is about 170 feet high, has 13 decks and can carry 8000 cars; that’s essentially a floating parking ramp on steroids. Unlike the ones in a big-city downtown, some of the decks are adjustable, so they can accept larger loads; a visit to Gdansk saw it offloading Toyotas and taking on specialty concrete equipment from a Polish customer.

The international nature of the shipping business was in full flower here, where the ship was built in Korea by the big Daewoo soup-to-nuts chaebol/conglomerate, flagged in Sweden and paying call to a Spanish port on its way to the US. With all that size, it only takes 15 people to man the vessel. That might be why firms are more than happy to look at slow-sailing, since fuel costs may be far more than labor costs with that small of a crew.

Such a monster will keep conventional car haulers busy. It would take roughly a thousand trucks to handle a full load of cars from this supership; that may be why many car companies will have large parking lots at the RORO terminal for their cars, since it may well be more efficient for the ship to quickly drive the cars off the ship and get them on to car haulers at a later time after the ship moves on.

Source: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y...0_M&sl=es&tl=en
http://www.shipsandharbours.com/picture/number5288.asp
http://www.portgdansk.pl/events/fidelio]]> 1268406590 Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:09:50 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268319011&archive= car moving expertise to India, hitting the millionth car exported from its Indian plants on Monday. Most of those cars have been sent to other developing countries, but Australia is now on Hyundai’s car haulers’ itinerary; the millionth (or 10 lakh in Indian-English) car was rolled-on to an Aussie-bound vessel at the port of Chennai.

That’s a bit of a wake-up call for world commerce, as India has become a major player in the export market. With an English-speaking workforce and stable, if a bit clunky, government, India is able to deliver developing-world wages with an Anglospherian mindset. Indian-bred makers like Tata and Mahindra catch people’s attention, but many major car companies from the rest of the world are doing even more exporting to the developing world out of India; if their smaller cars do well in India, they are well positioned to move those models out to the rest of the global South.

Domestic car transporters might be seeing the cars coming to the US coasts from India rather than Europe or the Far East in the years to come, which might change how the car industry works; however, the US might need to develop an appetite for smaller cars for that to happen. Also, an Indian-based executive will have an easier time with English than President Toyoda is having in today’s trip to Capital Hill.

Source:http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/0...22350430200.htm]]> 1268319011 Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:50:11 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268318913&archive= Overseas shipping companies and international car shipping firms that use the freight forwarding services of Toll Global Forwarding (TFG) could be seeing the services provided by Toll Global Forwarding improve now that they have finished implementing iCON (Information Control platform). This new supply chain technology is being used for Toll Global Forwarding's freight forwarding business for Europe and the Middle East. It should improve the freight forwarding services of Toll Global Forwarding and the ability of the overseas shipping companies they work with to get the freight to destination on time and budget.

The main services that iCON offers customers is the ability to better manage end-to-end supply chain processes and information flows along the chain of freight movements. Customers have the ability to view the information on line via the internet, which allows them control all aspects of management involved. The service is apparently tailored to the logistics and information services requirements of individual customers, which is interesting, and allows for a seamless connection between all parts of a supply chain into a single entity.

This new software application will definitely improve the freight forwarding services of Toll Global Forwarding, if it works as planned. The designers think iCON could have significant cost savings for firms that use the system, as well as a reduction in administration requirements, so there will be lots of firms watching to see how iCON helps Toll Global Forwarding. If the system works as planned more firms will definitely be looking at implementing iCON in their business in order to try to benefit as Toll Global Forwarding did from iCON. This doesn't mean that all firms will benefit from iCON as Toll Global Forwarding might, because the individual results of firms will differ according to their structure and other elements.

http://www.tollglobalforwarding.com/global/]]> 1268318913 Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:48:33 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268150130&archive= car transport, for they will wind up having a lot of long-distance ferries taking cars and cargo between islands. In such countries, roll-on-roll-off shipping becomes a major part of the shipping infrastructure. The Philippines is in the middle of overhauling its RORO fleet; since RORO firms tend to buy surplus ferries from developed countries, the Filipino fleet is older and more prone to failures; the Handy Shipping Guide quipped that old ferries go to the Philippines to die, sometimes literally.

The regulatory overhaul seems to be hitting smaller shipping companies that might not have the deeper pockets to afford newer ships; they also tend to have a lower regard to safety issue, especially if improving safety costs money. One regulation that has raise their ire is making everyone wear a life jacket while on-board; that will save lives in an accident but cost the shippers money. In their PR offensive, the shippers overstated the price of the jackets by about ten-fold.

A group of smaller ferry operators have talked about a “holiday” from operations on March 1st to protest the new regulations, but Philippine president Arroyo has threatened to yank the operating licenses of the car carriers that do go on strike. That will help larger providers, who are expanding their operations, buying newer ships and are not as vehement about the new regulations.

Thus, March may roar in like a lion and disrupt inter-island shipping if the small car haulers and the Arroyo administration both stick to their guns.

Sources: http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php?opt...onomy&Itemid=60
http://www.handyshippingguide.com/shipping...squalified_1314
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/243747/ats-a...ro-vessels-15-m]]> 1268150130 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:55:30 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268150037&archive= Car carriers are common sights on the Pacific going from Asia to the US; however, it took this story of a tough see rescue of a Filipino sailor on a Korean car transporter off of Kodiak Island to remind me that great-circle routes apply to ships as well as aircraft. The Modern Express car carrier was on a return trip from Portland to Busan when the sailor had a stoke and had to be rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter in 20-foot seas and 40-MPH winds. That sounds more like a script borrowed from Deadliest Catch rather than a mundane shipping run deadheading back to Korea; however, a great-circle route across the Pacific will loop you to the north off of Alaska, putting the ship up in the general vicinity of those celebrity Alaskan fishing boats.

One of the downsides of slow-sailing that has become more and more common among shipping companies these days is that their crew will be out to sea for longer stretches; such maritime rescues might become more common if sailors have problems out in the middle of the ocean, for they’ll be taking longer trips than before; it was the second Coast Guard rescue of a Filipino mariner in a week off of Alaska, the other coming near DC’s home turf of Dutch Harbor.

Ships may want to take a more southerly run than a great-circle route would indicate during the winter, for bad weather like the ones in this case are not abnormal in winter in the North Pacific. Mariners have always pushed the envelope, but hanging out off of Alaska in the middle of winter might be foolhardy.

Source: http://www.verticalmag.com/control/news/te...es/?a=13046&z=6]]> 1268150037 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:53:57 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268060054&archive= car transport in the near future. The video shows the UC pulling into a train station and then pulling into a train; the subway-like setting has rail cars split into two garage bays that the car rolls into.

The video ignores a bit of car hauler reality (the Rinspeed folks weren’t going hog wild with the special effects) by merely treating the rail car as a garage and not having anything to keep the car in place while the train moves forward, especially when the car is going into the train at a 90-degree angle; some strapping or latching mechanism other than a car-charging outlet in the bay would be needed in a real-world self-parking autorack.

However, the Rinspeed folks do present us a remedy for range anxiety; use a rolling highway to take electric and other cars from town to town. Since plug-in electric cars without an auxiliary gas motor have a limited range, the rolling highway idea will allow cars to move from town to town.

The idea of a rail-auto piggyback isn’t all that novel; a rail-truck piggyback is used in Alpine countries already and a I-81 rolling highway is envisioned as part of the Knoxville-Harrisburg Crescent Corridor project. There would likely be a more efficient placement of autos than two a rail-car, but give the Rinspeed folks some credit for an interesting vision of the future.

Source: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/18/video-r...ng-with-the-uc/]]> 1268060054 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:54:14 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1268059610&archive= car shipping facilities. Hyundai is in discussions with the port of Philadelphia to open a 90-acre car-finishing facility to bring in not only Hyundai cars but their Kia subsidiary’s cars as well. The proposed facility would bring 250 jobs to the area that could use a boost.

It would seem to make sense for a Korean car maker to be using the west coast as its staging area for cars, but it might make economic sense on a number of fronts. The space at west-coast ports seems to be at a premium, so the large acreage needed to run a car finishing facility might be better done at somewhat less active ports. In addition, the new modifications to the Panama Canal due in 2014 will allow a new class of Panamax II vessels to get to the east coast from Asia.

Secondly, if Hyundai wants to minimize the non-sea portion of their shipping, serving customers in the East and Midwest via Philadelphia might make sense. Mercedes moved its processing facility from Charleston to Baltimore to give car haulers a shorter drive to Midwestern customers, and that logic might apply to Philadelphia as well.

Lastly, the east-coast ports will tend to have less stringent requirements for trucks serving the ports; that will allow car transport companies to use older, less-costly trucks that might not meet the specs of the California air quality standards. That will make shipping cars out of Philly a notch less expensive.

Source:http://www.cargobusinessnews.com/news/wednesday/news2.html]]> 1268059610 Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:46:50 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1267717994&archive= car hauling issues here is why the Great Lakes aren’t used much for car deliveries. One issue is that the lakes typically ice over during the winter and the St. Laurence Seaway connecting the Atlantic with Lake Ontario closes up shop in January and February; Seawaymax limitations might leave some bigger car carriers stuck on the Atlantic coast as well.

However, that means that there’s still nine months of the year from mid-March to mid-December that modest-sized ROROs could make into the Great Lakes. A piece in the Kenosha News showed that town’s history as an auto export port. American Motors (later merged into Chrysler) had one of their main plants in Kenosha (on Lake Michigan between Milwaukee and Chicago). A picture in the article showed a batch of Rambler station wagons about to board a Swedish vessel in 1958. The ship was in hoist-on, hoist-off mode; one Rambler is in midair.

Lake levels were what did in the port of Kenosha. The 1960s saw lower water levels on the Great Lakes. My grandparents had a cottage on Lake Huron (a hydrological Siamese twin with Lake Michigan and thus the same level) and there was a lot more beach in the 60s; it was a closer walk to the beach in the 60s than when the lake levels increased in the 70s. Then, there was no sand at the closest easement to the cottage due to the higher water levels, and we had to walk down a few blocks to where there was sand as I got older.

Too much beach at Tawas Point also meant too little water in Kenosha, and only small-draft ships could make it in. Thus, Kenosha dried up figuratively and literally as a seaport in the 60s and has yet to recover. Since then, levels rose in the 70s and 80s, only to drop back down again in the 00s.

Car companies might not want to invest in facilities that are only useful nine months of the year and could dry up in a bad stretch. Thus, Baltimore is the best bet for car companies from Europe and elsewhere looking to get cars to the Great Lakes.

Source: http://www.kenoshanews.com/news/history_my...0s_7460092.html]]> 1267717994 Thu, 04 Mar 2010 09:53:14 -0600 http://www.momentumtransport.com?subaction=showfull&id=1267631458&archive= moving cars from Toyota at higher than expected prices according to a report in the Fort Meyers News Press. At least in southwest Florida, auction prices for Toyotas have increased since 2009, despite the incessant bad press the company has received for a string of recalls so far this year.

One observation made by one of the car dealers interviewed is that people familiar with the brand are more trusting of Toyota than people who aren’t; that should help Toyota going forward. Such confidence would indicate that their reputation for quality has not been shot as of yet; the general car-buying public may be more forgiving of Toyota than newspaper writers are, or disagree with the writers and officials how bad the problems are.

In addition, some of Toyota’s problems have stemmed from flawed parts provided by suppliers. Such standardization helps bring costs down, but it also can make it harder to do quality control; thus, Toyota may not get as much blame for the bad parts than if they made the parts themselves.

The skeptic would chime in that “the plural of anecdote is not data;” we need to take the Fort Meyers piece with a grain of salt, since three anecdotes don’t create a national trend. However, Toyota’s problems may not be as bad as reporters and government officials make them out to be; reporters want juicy headlines to move copy and officials will often err on the side of caution rather than have a disaster happen on their watch. Car haulers may be lugging Toyotas to places other than the junk yard for a while longer.

Source: http://www.news-press.com/article/20100217...as-still-strong]]> 1267631458 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:50:58 -0600