The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger - Second Edition with a new chapter by the author

by Marc Levinson

Overcapacity preoccupied everyone connected with containerization. “Now that standardized containers have been introduced, the rush to ‘get on the bandwagon’ will probably lead to substantial overexpansion,” a study for the British government warned in 1967. By one early estimate, 5 ships carrying 1,200 containers each, sailing at 25 knots, could move all of the U.S.–U.K. trade that could be containerized. By another, just 25 ships could handle the entire general-cargo trade between Europe and North America. A third estimate foresaw that the 5 ships ordered by the American carrier Farrell Line would be adequate for all of Australia’s exports to the United States. With hundreds of containerships on order, experts projected that half the available container slots across both the Atlantic and the Pacific would go unused by 1974. In the North Atlantic, “by the early 1970s there will be excess container capacity,” a study for the U.S. government predicted in 1968.