Drone ships may be the next generation of shipping. Rolls Royce recently launched a $7.2m autonomous ship project intended to pave the way for drone vessels.
Import cargo volume at the nation's major retail container ports is expected to increase 3.6 percent this month over the same time last year as retailers begin to bring in merchandise for the holiday season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates. Imports for the year are expected to be up 4.2 percent over 2014.
Just one year after its announcement, Egypt's expanded Suez Canal is open for business. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi led the inauguration ceremony, which was attended by several Middle Eastern and European world leaders. The publicly-funded expansion cost about $8.5bn.
The specialised reefer fleet is shrinking and shows no signs of reversing in the future. However, the reefer containership fleet has increased by 15 percent year-on-year and is set to grow 20 percent by 2018, according to Drewry's latest Reefer Shipping Market Annual Review & Forecast.
Distribution centers near the nation's top seaports are bursting with consumer goods and other cargo - and that's before the Panama Canal extension opens next spring. Distribution center and warehouse occupancy levels have reached historic highs, while expensive construction and labor costs keep new development sparse in many seaport industrial real estate markets.
CargoSmart Limited, a vendor of shipment-management software, has created Big Schedules, a sailing-schedule search platform that helps shippers and logistics service providers to manage and visualize their ocean routes.
Container service reliability made another steady improvement in June with the aggregate on-time performance for the three key East-West trades rising by 5.7 percentage points to extend the data-series record to 77.3 percent, according to Carrier Performance Insight, the online schedule reliability tool provided by Drewry Supply Chain Advisors.
The latest news, analysis, services and systems regarding ocean transportation and its impact on global supply chains. Today’s companies are transporting and delivering container shipments in a more efficient manner than ever before using new services and technologies that provide information en route - allowing them to stay ahead of the competition in their industries. As ocean cargo services continue to evolve, businesses are discovering new ways to increase efficiency and cut costs. Learn how companies are using ocean shipping solutions to power their supply chains.
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