The Containerised Car Transport Guide
The Containerised Car Transport Guide
The Containerised Car Transport Guide
Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4
About our company ........................................................................................................................... 5
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Contents
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Introduction
For these reasons, RORO shipping transport has been the standard method for
getting cars to different locations around the world, but this is changing. Thanks to
our innovative racking systems, container shipping is once again a viable option for
businesses looking to save costs and reduce damage on their car shipments.
Our racking solutions have the potential to drastically increase the number of cars
you can transport in each container, slashing transportation costs per unit while
improving safety standards.
We have written this e-book for logistics professionals with an open mind for
exploring the cost saving potential of container shipping for cars. We discuss the
benefits and drawbacks of traditional RORO transport, the historic downsides of
container shipping, and how we have overcome these to save our customers time,
increase transport capacity and reduce damage costs.
As a business we are in constant liaison with all major OEMs and logistics providers
to establish new procedures, forge new standards and raise the benchmark for
shipping cars in containers.
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About Our Company
Our team of directors and designers combine more than 30 years of logistics and
engineering experience to create a company with a unique outlook, vision and skill
set. From our base in Warwick in the UK we employ a dedicated British technical
support, sales and customer service team; serving customers worldwide.
We hope you enjoy reading this e-book and find it useful. If you have
questions or would like to discuss any of the issues raised, please feel free to
call us on +44 (0) 1926 408282.
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The Best Way To
Get Your Cars To
Market
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The Best Way To Get
Your Cars To Market
The introduction of our racking solutions has changed a lot of the assumptions
about car transportation. We have already mentioned the revolutionary potential of
this removable racking system in our introduction, and we will go into more detail
in a subsequent section. However, a major/significant change in logistics practice
does not happen overnight.
So we will start our e-book with a discussion of the comparative benefits of the
shipping methods that businesses commonly use now, as compared with the
container shipping alternative.
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The Best Way To Get
Your Cars To Market
If you are moving cars within the same country, or across a continental landmass
then train or road are viable transport options. However, you will often be limited
to the number of vehicles you can transport by these means. And if you need to
transport cars over long distances or intercontinentally, then a ship is your only real
option.
Car transportation ships tend to be purpose designed Roll On, Roll Off ferries,
usually abbreviated to RORO ships. As the name suggests, in a RORO ship, cars are
driven onto the vessel directly. They are then secured in place for their long journey.
RORO vessels are big, deep water ships that require large ports and shore-based
ramps for cargo loading, so it is likely that you will need to transport your cars by
train or road from the factory or depot to get to the ship.
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The Best Way To Get
Your Cars To Market
Transfer Requirements
A long journey can mean a lot of transfers. For instance, taking a shipment of cars
from a factory on the West Coast of the USA to a car dealership in Germany might
involve ten or more changes, handlings and transitions.
You will first need to get your cars by road from the factory to a storage depot, then
onto a road transporter for a drive over to the nearest freight rail terminal. Then into
storage again, and onto the train for the long trip by rail to one of the deep water
ports on the Eastern Seaboard. You can then cross the Atlantic on an oceangoing
RORO vessel before docking at a European port such as Zeebrugge. Your journey
to Germany involves another transfer to storage, then to rail and storage yet again.
Then onto another road transporter for the last mile or two to the car dealership.
With every one of these stages, there is more handling of the vehicles, increasing
the risk of damage and human error each time. All in all it’s quite a saga.
The equivalent in daily life might be going to the shop to pick up some groceries.
You walk to the car, drive to the shop, park, walk around the shop to get your items,
then repeat the journey in reverse order. Imagine doing this without a carrier bag.
You would have to ferry each item from the shop to the car and from the car to
the house by hand. This increases the time it takes to complete the trip and the
manpower involved. It also increases the chance that you will drop the milk or crack
an egg, because there is much more handling required. Having a carrier bag cuts
out this risk and saves a lot of time.
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The Best Way To Get
Your Cars To Market
This, of course, is the problem that we set out to solve with our racking solutions.
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The Best Way To Get
Your Cars To Market
Pro Con
- Established, go-to method - Not door to door
RORO (Therefore, easy to set up) - More handlings
- High capacity - Can’t handle medium to low
- Favourable rates on huge volumes
volumes - Slow transit times
- Can only go into large ports
- Requires large and costly
storage yards/areas to hold
vehicles before and after
loading
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The Best Way To Get
Your Cars To Market
Every business has the same goal. You want to get the cars to market while
minimising costs and damage. That is the only real concern; different transport
devices are simply means to an end. At Trans-Rak, we have developed our racking
solutions to make container shipping a viable and realistic option for logistics
businesses. In fact, as soon as shipping containers become an affordable means of
transporting cars, the choice of RORO vs container shipping becomes obvious.
You can have multimodal transport on ship, barge, truck or train in order to attain
the quickest route, while also minimising the risk of excess handling – as once your
cars are safely in their container, they can be safely carried by ship, train or road. No
one needs to touch them until they reach their final destination.
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Common Problems
with Containers
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Common Problems with
Containers
Many businesses that have looked into container shipping for cars may at this
point be raising their eyebrows. If it were that easy to transport cars in shipping
containers, then surely everyone would be doing it. It is fair to say that there are a
lot of problems with traditional container transport. Some are completely justified
and others are more a matter of perception than facts.
In this section we will explain the reasons why many businesses are reluctant
to use shipping containers for their cars, as well as exposing some common
misconceptions about container transport.
“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it”: RORO shipping is extremely popular and has
developed over the years to the point that it is reasonably fast and cost efficient. It
is regularly used by most of the largest car manufacturers, and is a transportation
method that everyone is familiar with. Sometimes it is simply a matter of sticking
with what is familiar and reliable, rather than branching out and taking a risk on a
different method.
Not suitable for all vehicles: Shipping containers, being of a standard size, are not
suited to all vehicles. Wide cars, in particular, may have difficulties being loaded
into a shipping container. This is an area we have set out to tackle with our DL-RAK
product, a device that enables loading of vehicles in containers without a driver.
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Common Problems with
Containers
Security of vehicles: How safe are containerised vehicles during transit? If they
are not securely positioned in the container there is a real risk of damage during
loading/unloading, as well as from motion during transit by sea.
Wooden racks are fragile and untested: Many single-use car racks developed for
use in shipping containers are made of wood. These do not have an extensive track
record of safe use in the industry and some have proven to be quite fragile under
stress. Our racking systems are made of high strength steel, so does not have these
vulnerabilities.
Logistics companies are not set up to use racks. Also, people need to be trained
to operate them: This is another issue with unfamiliarity. Part of the failure of
logistics companies to widely adopt racking, comes down to a lack of knowledge
about its potential. Personnel also need to be trained in order to use them safely.
Bad experiences with racking can just as often be traced back to improper usage
as they can to faulty equipment. Logistics companies are justifiably hesitant
about investing in novel equipment and extensive retraining, so the option of
containerisation is often not made available to automotive transporters.
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Common Problems with
Containers
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Common Problems with
Containers
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How to Make
Containerisation
Work Better For You
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How to Make Containerisation
Work Better For You
When we were sitting around the drawing board, we decided to judge our solution by
three criteria of success. Our removable racking system would be a success if it helped
our customers…
By fitting more than two cars into a 40ft container, the cost per vehicle is reduced. This
is the figure that really matters. If you use a metal rack that allows you to load four cars
into each container instead of two, the costs are halved. Suddenly containerised car
shipping becomes very viable as a financial proposition compared to RORO.
Obviously, some cars take up more space than others, but if you use R-RAK in a 40 foot
shipping container you will easily accommodate three or four vehicles. 45 foot shipping
containers can carry up to six vehicles once R-RAK is installed.
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How to Make Containerisation
Work Better For You
To transport a single vehicle you would require one racking module. However,
loading four vehicles inside a container only requires two racking modules, and
loading three small vehicles only requires one. This allows for an impressive
economy of scale on the journey out.
For the return trip, 60 racking sytems can be collapsed down into a single 40ft
container for return shipment. That means that for every 30 or even 60 containers
carrying cars (depending on load pattern), only one must be returned. Other
solutions can only manage a ratio of 10 or 15 to one at present, meaning that the
repositioning costs are three to four times higher.
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How to Make Containerisation
Work Better For You
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Why Choose
R-RAK?
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Why Choose R-RAK?
R-RAK is the best removable racking system currently on the market for loading
multiple vehicles into shipping containers, while making the most use of the cubic
space available.
Like many of the best designs, R-RAK is simple in concept and extremely robust
in manufacture. The all-metal framework is lightweight and designed for quick
installation. With basic training, a team can rapidly install one or more R-RAK
modules in a container, position the vehicles and secure them for onward shipping.
This section explains what R-RAK is, and how it is used.
Modular design
Each R-RAK module consists of two wheel frames and four vertical posts. The
modular design fits in any 9’6 High Cube shipping container, and because the
modules are all separate, they can accommodate any size of vehicle, in any position
within the container, all with the same racking system. Typically, it is possible to
load 4 vehicles per 40ftHC container and this can increase to 6 for very small cars.
Trans-Rak have developed the R-RAK and are the patent holders who are
also responsible for global sales and marketing marketing. HPCL oversee the
manufacturing itself at their facility in China, in accordance with ISO9001 and
ISO14001 standards.
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Why Choose R-RAK?
R-RAK certifications
In the four years since it was launched, R-RAK has been adopted by shipping and
logistics companies across the world, including those in USA, Germany, UK, China,
South Africa and Indonesia. R-RAK has been certified by a number of international
classification agencies as a safe and reliable shipping technology.
Bureau Veritas
Lloyds Register
China Classification Society
Association of American Railroads
Russian Railways
Germanischer Lloyd
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Why Choose R-RAK?
Here are the main advantages of R-RAK, over and above our competitors:
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EL-RAK:
Our External
Racking Solution
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EL-RAK: Our External
Racking Solution
The second of our high strength steel, modular racking systems is the EL-RAK, or
Exterior Loading rack. The principal difference between the EL-RAK and the R-RAK
is that, while the R-RAK has to be installed in the shipping container before the cars
are loaded into place, with the EL-RAK, vehicles are secured in place outside the
shipping container, before the entire cassette is loaded into place by forklift truck.
Since its introduction in 2018, the EL-RAK has proven to be a versatile and
responsive solution to a variety of car shipping needs, and widens the choice
available to businesses making the switch to containerised transport. Using an
EL-RAK allows operators to stow 3 to 4 standard sized cars per 40 foot shipping
container.
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EL-RAK: Our External
Racking Solution
Load capacity
Like our other racking solutions, using just two EL-RAKs will double the carrying
capacity of a standard 40 foot HC container from 2 to 4 vehicles, with a carrying
capacity of up to 6 cars, depending on the load configuration and size of the
vehicles.
3x mid-large sized cars or small vans - using two EL-RAKs in one of two
configurations: 2x raised + 1x floor vehicle, or 2x floor + 1x raised vehicle.
4x standard sized cars - using two EL-RAKs in a 2x raised + 2x floor vehicle
configuration.
6x small vehicles or sports cars – using three EL-RAKs in a 3x raised + 3x floor
vehicle configuration.
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EL-RAK: Our External
Racking Solution
On all other competing systems, the top and bottom cassette are separate parts,
and often come in separate sizes. While this sometimes makes the system cheaper
to produce, it brings some significant drawbacks:
The EL-RAK is an integrated unit with both cassettes the same size and
interconnected within the rack. This allows the EL-RAK to outperform all other
models currently available, providing greater flexibility and ease-of-use:
The EL-RAK quickly collapses down into a flat, pallet shaped module, which can
be stowed in a shipping container for relocation.
With the EL-RAK, the racking is moved into the container horizontally, rather
than at an angle. Once within the container, the upper cassette can be angled
into transport position, ensuring each vehicle is lifted as high as possible inside
the container. This avoids container utilisation being limited by the lower height
of the header bar at the door - in other words, you can store more vehicles in
each container when using an EL-RAK.
The EL-RAK can be adjusted within minutes to accommodate vehicles of
different sizes, making it especially useful for mixed vehicle consignments.
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EL-RAK: Our External
Racking Solution
Choosing the EL-RAK as your external racking solution streamlines shipment planning,
helps you maximise load efficiency, minimises the risk of damage, and keeps transport
costs to a minimum.
EL-RAK or R-RAK?
The other question is how to choose between the EL-RAK and R-RAK for your
containerised shipping needs? As we have seen, both systems help reduce your
transportation overheads by increasing load capacity in shipping containers, and
both are equally efficient at reducing the risk of stock damage.
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EL-RAK: Our External
Racking Solution
This being said, you may find an EL-RAK to be a better choice than an R-RAK in
the following circumstances:
The repositioning cost is low. Both types of rack are highly efficient systems
which maximise the amount of collapsed racking to be loaded inside a
container. 45 EL-RAKs (that's 90 cars worth) or 60 R-RAKs (that's 120 cars
worth) will fit in a 40ft shipping container.
The docking area allows for external loading – you must have sufficient space
in the embarkation area to assemble the EL-RAKs and drive the vehicles into
place, before loading them into containers.
Your consignment includes non-functioning vehicles. With the R-RAK, you
have to be able to drive the vehicle onto the racking inside a shipping
container, which is a problem if, for instance, the vehicle is damaged or does
not have an engine for security reasons. This isn’t a problem with the EL-RAK,
as the vehicles are secured to the racking outside the container, and do not
have to be driven into place.
If you are moving particularly large and heavy vehicles, such as BEVs (Battery
Electric Vehicles), then the EL-RAK may be advantageous over the R-RAK. This
is because the EL-RAK has a rated weight capacity of up to 3000kg and does
not require the vehicle doors to be opened inside the container.
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Find Out More
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Find Out More
For more information, please download our brochure or view our new promotional
video. You can also find more information on our website and our blog, which you
can access through the links below:
Website: www.trans-rak.com
Blog: https://blog.trans-rak.com/
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Find Out More
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