Photo credit: Peter Rukavina

The International Journal of Shipping and Transport Logistics had an interesting piece last month on how managing empty containers is an integral part of creating a short sea shipping and regional ports infrastructure.

“Short sea shipping represents a viable tactic in the implementation of a regional port system development strategy on the West Coast of the USA and should be considered as a possible method for alleviating landside congestion stemming from commercial traffic in major urban corridors.”

The piece was written by Hanh Le-Griffin, from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California, and Mark Griffin, from TTW, Inc. in Long Beach, Calif.

From the abstract:

“Specific opportunities for the implementation of this [short sea shipping] method in Southern California are found with the redirecting of empty container flows to secondary ports, as well as with international movements to and from manufacturing regions on the USA-Mexico border.”

You’ll need a subscription to read whole article, which you can find here.