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Weekly UpdatesAt the beginning of the study, a matrix format of the four surface modes was constructed to determine possible transload partners (Table 1). As shown in Table 2, an additional matrix of mode versus product characteristics was made to further delineate the research effort and to establish the appropriate number of interviews for the study. Recommendations from transportation practitioners, advertisements in transportation publications, and personal contacts within the transportation industry resulted in the identification of forty firms, covering the entire modal partner spectrum, involved in transloading.
Each interview was conducted with an official of the company who had experience with the daily transportation operations. The actual organizational level of these individuals varied from company to company based upon firm size and corporate structure. The titles ranged from chief operator to company president. Each difference in company position was seen as an opportunity to further differentiate the interviewee's perception of the transloading practice. Each interview was held at the place of business for the company being researched, and generally included a facility tour, which strengthened the understanding of the operation.
CONCEPTUAL TRANSLOAD MODEL
Five key research propositions were developed as a part of this research to guide the case studies. These included:
* Certain commodities and commodity characteristics will predominate in the transload market.
* Modal and carrier involvement will be based upon (but not limited to) factors such as cost structure, loss and damage history, access, and carrying capacity.
* Shipper participation in transload will be stratified by company size and corporate strategy.
* The relationship between customer and carrier will be that of a partnership due to the complexity involved in a transload movement.
* The use of transload will reflect many of the same characteristics that are currently found within the intermodal context, such as the desire to contain costs and the obtainment of alternative transportation options.
What was not anticipated in developing the propositions for the conceptual model, but became an important part of the research, was the small number of those interviewed who had a "good" concept of what intermodalism is or how it can be explained. Approximately one-third of those interviewed had no definition or had not even heard of the word intermodal, while another third related it to containers or trailers moving on rail or ship.
Because of the lack of a clearly expressed meaning for the word intermodal, a more precise term was sought to facilitate nomological validity of the transportation process being researched. One term that was used in the pre-study interviews was transload. Early references to this term describe it as a transfer between modes without containers, but unitized in another type of device.(15) Other transportation references relate it more to a consolidation or less-than-truckload technique. For example, Sampson and Farris state that "in transloading, the carrier may combine several loads of different shipments in a single vehicle for his own convenience."(16) A very recent definition provided by Muller indicates that transloading is the "practice of transferring bulk shipment from the vehicle/container of one mode to that of another."(17)
Although definitions and explanations for transload exist, they are very limited within the literature. Therefore, it was not unexpected that this term had an even smaller recognition factor, with only about half of those interviewed even using this word to describe their transportation process. However, among those who did have a definition, there was some general agreement as to what was involved in the operation. Most of those who had a definition for the word transload used it as a verb. Interestingly enough, several of those interviewed defined transloading by the modes of transportation with which they deal. Since this is the typical way each uses transload as a part of their transportation strategy, these descriptions seemed to accurately reflect the concept. Reasons for not having a single unified term for the transload process ranged from perceptual (it's not just a reload center) to past regulatory forced separation of modal activities.
INTERVIEW AND RESEARCH FINDINGS
Type and Characteristics of Commodities Involved in Transloading
Previous transload research has tended to be mode and commodity specific. For example, Allen and Voorhees focused their studies on rail-barge movements of grain and coal.(18) The case studies conducted for this research examined nearly forty commodities currently moving in transload operations. As shown in Table 3, the listing includes dry and liquid flowables, as well as a significant number of non-flowable products. Several of the commodities are relatively new to the transload operations and represent business that was in some instances a part of an acquisition or an alternative to loss of another means of transportation. An overall assessment by the interviewees seemed to be that across a variety of criteria, transloading was the most suitable option for their specific needs.
There is a strong relationship between the viability of transloading and the characteristics of the commodities being transported using this strategy. An examination of the different commodities revealed several important characteristics which most or all of the commodities shared. First among the characteristics is that they all move in large volumes, or are large (in terms of physical size) in their transported state. An inherent advantage of barge, rail, or pipeline is carrying capacity; it is therefore expected that transload activities involving these modes would seek to utilize this aspect.
The ability to handle the product is another issue which may define a preferred commodity characteristic for transload practices. For most of the commodities in this study, multiple handlings are not a major issue if certain procedures are followed. Few of the commodities involved in transloading appear to be extremely sensitive or readily damageable by the additional handling needed to make the entire move.
Most of the transload commodities are industrial or commercial in nature and thus are bought and sold in large volumes and/or sizes. The products are items used by industry as either raw materials or components for production of other commodities for the consumer or commercial market.
Selection and Arrangement Process
Research findings indicate that the commodity shippers generally take primary responsibility for initiating transload movements. Few transload terminals have their own marketing staffs, and many reported that they rely on shipper or carrier inquiries for new business. However, there are exceptions to this arrangement. CSX Transportation, Inc. (CSXT), a railroad, uses a subsidiary, Bulk Intermodal Distribution Services, to manage more than seventy transload terminals for the company. Just as with many other transload terminals, the subsidiary has no real marketing staff. Instead they have a fairly uncommon arrangement whereby the commodity marketers within CSXT solicit much of their business. The subsidiary also uses a carrier-neutral operator at each terminal to provide maximum carrier flexibility for the shippers.
Counter to the philosophy of direct center control, the Norfolk Southern (NS) Railway uses a system of railroad-owned centers operated under contract by firms such as motor carriers. In addition to contracting, NS also markets to some extent transload centers owned and operated by others. Terminal operators appear to be satisfied with these types of arrangements in that a dedicated carrier at a center provides a guaranteed vehicle supply, allows for consolidation, and leads to increased utilization of equipment. It was also reported that such practices add an incentive for the firm to move freight through the center knowing that regardless of original customer contact, each party will experience a growth in business. Additional synergies are gained in that two skilled teams of marketing personnel may be in the field and at corporate levels to bring new business in the operations.
There appears to be no one arrangement process that leads to a successful transload operation. Port and land facility transload operators also acknowledged many differences between their operations and that each tended to customize their own system. The differences in arrangements can be partially attributed to the fact that most transload centers are built customer- or commodity-specific.
An exception to this finding is third parties that promote specialization or separation of responsibility and tasks. For transloading, transportation specialties are a regular practice within this segment and some firms are established just to serve that role. Transload facility operators serve a connecting function between the various carriers used in the movement. Carriers have also been selected to function in this manner. The separation of tasks contributes to the lack of throughput data for intermodal freight movements, and if reported may lead to overestimation of volumes as several of the involved entities may assume ownership of the arrangement and subsequently over-report the data.
It appears in some instances that transload and warehouse/storage facilities designed for transload purposes have been used as competitive weapons to prevent total domination by any one mode or carrier. For example, the state of Montana used federal rail funds to construct a gain loading facility for access to another railroad other than the one currently serving the traffic. Another case where transloading has been utilized to increase competition is in the soda ash mining area of southwestern Wyoming. In this arrangement, shippers use a truck-to-rail transload operation to reach the competing carrier. Even though a small portion of the total volume moves via this method, it is a sufficient amount to keep the primary rail carrier from obtaining full domination over the traffic.
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