Inland port

This article is about a shipment facility on a river, or canal. For a facility without water access, see dry port.
"River port" redirects here. For other uses, see Riverport (disambiguation).
Duisburg Inner Harbour, the world's largest inland port

The term inland port is used in two different but related ways to mean either a port on an inland waterway or an inland site carrying out some functions of a seaport.

As a port on an inland waterway

Port of Bratislava at night

An inland port in the wide sense, as used in common speech, is simply a port on an inland waterway such as a river, lake or canal. The United States Army Corps of Engineers publishes a list of such locations and for this purpose states that "inland ports" are ports that are located on rivers and do not handle deep draft ship traffic. The list includes familiar ports such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Memphis. A network of inland waterways including ports is developed also in Europe (France, Germany, Poland, Russia, UK, Netherlands, Belgium), China and Brazil.

As an inland site with seaport function

The term inland port is also used in a narrow sense in the field of transportation systems to mean a rather more specialized facility that has come about with the advent of the intermodal container (standardized shipping container) in international transport. Rather than goods being loaded and unloaded in such ports, shipping containers can just be transferred between ship and road vehicle or ship and train. The container may be transferred again between road and rail elsewhere and the goods are only loaded or unloaded at their point of origin or final destination.

Shipping containers allow some functions traditionally carried out at a seaport to be moved elsewhere. Examples are the functions of receiving, processing through customs, inspecting, sorting, and consolidating containers going to the same overseas port. Container transfer at the seaport can be sped up and container handling space can be reduced by transferring functions to an inland site away from the port and coast.

Distribution may also be made more efficient by setting up the link between inland site and seaport as, say, a high-capacity rail link with a lower unit cost than sending containers individually by road. The containers are still collected from their origins or distributed to their ultimate destinations by road with the transfer happening at the inland site.

An inland port is just such an inland site linked to a seaport. This kind of inland port does not require a waterway. Key features of an inland port are the transfer of containers between different modes of transportation (intermodal transfer) and the processing of international trade. This differentiates an inland port from a container depot or transport hub.[1]

The term inland port may also be used for a similar model of a site linked to an airport or land border crossing rather than a seaport.

The definition of inland port in the jargon of the transportation and logistics industries is:

An inland port is a physical site located away from traditional land, air and coastal borders with the vision to facilitate and process international trade through strategic investment in multi-modal transportation assets and by promoting value-added services as goods move through the supply chain.[2]

Inland ports may also be referred to as dry ports or intermodal hubs.

Port of Montreal, Canada's second busiest port

Advantages of an inland port

North River Port in Moscow

An inland port can speed the flow of cargo between ships and major land transportation networks, creating a more central distribution point. Inland ports can improve the movement of imports and exports, moving the time-consuming sorting and processing of containers inland, away from congested seaports.

Examples of inland waterways

Examples of "inland ports" in the first, wide usage are

Africa

Examples of inland sites

Africa

Asia

Europe

North America

South America

Oceania

Under construction

North America
Oceania

Proposed

Africa
North America

See also

References

  1. ↑ Inland Port vs. Container Port. Prepared by C.M. (Red) Williams, President of Saskatchewan Agrivision Corporation. Retrieved 27 July 2007.
  2. ↑ Leitner, Sara Jean; Harrison, Robert (2001). The Identification and Classification of Inland Ports. Center for Transportation Research, The University of Texas at Austin. p. 69. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  3. ↑ Tororo Inland Port Under Construction
  4. ↑ "Port of Montreal".
  5. ↑ "Port of Quebec City".
  6. ↑ "Ashcroft Terminal".
  7. ↑ "Port of New Orleans".
  8. ↑ "Port of Richmond".
  9. ↑ "City of West Sacramento - Port of West Sacramento".
  10. ↑ About Virginia Inland Port
  11. ↑ http://www.railpage.com.au/news/article-14448/
  12. ↑ Ettamogah Inland Port
  13. ↑ "Transport hub operator sought". Brighton Council. 2009. Retrieved 2010-01-08.
  14. ↑ Railway Digest October 2012, p18
  15. ↑ - opened Aug 2012/f-t11356716.htm About Dooen Inland Port
  16. ↑ About Warrnambool Inland Port
  17. ↑ About Direk Inland Port
  18. ↑ 2010 Track & Signal Autumn 2010, p8
  19. ↑ CentrePort Canada
  20. ↑ Port Alberta
  21. ↑ Greer 'inland port' may be new SC economic engine BusinessWeek March 2013
  22. ↑ About Martinsburg Inland Port
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