New Container Design Eliminates Empty Transport

A new container has been patented which is designed to eliminate the transport of empty units. The 20-foot container developed by Juan Ureta, Jesus Garcia and Francisco Aguilar, can be joined to other “Connectainers” to form a 40-foot container, or disconnected again, by two people in 30 minutes.

Approximately 24 percent of the total container transport volume consists of empty units, say Aguilar, exactly 81.5 million empty TEU sailing an average of 14 days. “That means 150 latest generation vessels of 21,000 TEU sailing the whole year non-stop.”

Aguilar estimates that half of these moves are made in gateway ports where global figures of import and export are quite balanced at a TEU level, but where the port’s container needs differ between import and export. 

Connectainer is water tight, structurally resistant, and keeps the internal and external dimensions of present containers so it is compatible with multimodal transportation.

The developers say container lines would not need to replace all their stock, having 10 percent Connectainers would be enough to alleviate the problem of transporting empty units as each connection/disconnection avoids three empty moves.