TRANSPORTATION OF GOODS. MULTIMODAL TRANSPORTATION

Transportation companies deal with various types of transportation, which enables the clients to receive their goods in a timely manner all around the world. Here we will speak about multimodal transportation, which is widely used in all regions of the world.

Multimodal type of transportation is when delivery of goods to the point of destination is conducted with use of various transportation means. Multimodal transportation involves combination of wide variety of modes of transportation, where the most widely used ones are aircraft, sea vessels, freight trains and trucks. Multimodal transportation has another peculiarity – they are organised by one single party, in another words responsibility falls on a single transportation company throughout the whole route.

Multimodal transportation of goods is used in international shipping of cargo, especially if one has to deliver the cargo from one continent to another. Nevertheless this type of transportation is also used within the borders of one country – for example during transportation of produce from a remote region. In such case cargo airplane is used to deliver goods from the airport to the client.

It is important to note that usually one single transportation company bears responsibility for multimodal transportation. In the case when organiser of transportation decides to involve freight forwarders, then such type of transportation is called intermodal shipping, however such option bears additional time and financial costs.

What about the question of financial cost for multimodal transportation of cargo? As a rule, at first transportation company devises the most optimal route of goods’ delivery, calculates the cost of the transportation and notifies it to the client. In general all possibilities are usually reduced to the following alternatives: “expensive and quick” or “cheap and slow”. In this case the client has to make a decision based on the type of cargo – if goods are perishable or valuable, then such shipment has to justify the costs. If goods can be stored at a storage facility for years, it is better to choose long and cheap route.

Organisation of such transportation has to begin with the planning of the route, everything has to be thought through in detail: points of reloading, stopovers, time plan of movement and so on. Sometimes during multimodal transportation difficulties with registration of documents occur, in addition a fine can be imposed on the cargo or arrest of goods. Such issues are not so rare, this is why it is important to trust the transportation to the reliable company which has extensive experience and good reputation in this field.

Multimodal shipment of goods is nowadays considered to be the most difficult type of transportation, since they demand special knowledge and appropriate experience of work in the field. In addition, such shipment has to be prepared by well-prepared specialists in this field, otherwise the client can suffer substantial and unjustifiably high financial costs.