Page 6 - Port Of Hamburg Magazine 01.2018

■ 50 YEARS OF CONTAINERS IN HAMBURG
Container shipping: Where do we go from here?
This year Hamburg celebrates fifty years of container handling in its port. The application of the container to maritime shipping has revolutionised maritime transport, propelled global trade flows and enabled international economic outsourcing on a scale that we have never seen before. Containerised maritime transport has reached its limits. What are the innovations that will make it survive the next fifty years?
The introduction of the container in maritime trans- port has resulted in various innovations that have real- ised time and cost savings. Container shipping has given rise to specialised container terminals with spe- cific equipment for speedy handling, such as contain- er quay cranes and yard equipment. The standardisa- tion brought about by containerisation has increased the possibilities for economies of scale. The history of container shipping is characterised by an almost con- tinuous race towards bigger ships. At this moment, the largest container ship in operation can carry over
20,000 standard containers, which is more than hun- dred times more than the first container ships. Com- panies with the biggest ships can transport contain- ers with the lowest costs, so these are the ones that can offer the cheapest rates to customers – and be most competitive.
More economies of scale in ships have resulted in far-reaching consolidation in the container shipping industry. Different waves of mergers and acquisi- tions over the last decades have resulted in a market
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