Planning for Megacontainerships: Statewide Transportation Planning Approach

The emergence of the megacontainership, exceeding 5,000 twenty-foot equivalents (TEUs) in capacity, is of interest to shippers, logistics companies, port authorities, and those engaged in maritime planning. Where such ships unload, rather than transship, state transportation agencies responsible for multimodal planning and highway connectivity are affected by greater flows of containers passing through the load center. A planning process is described that can be applied at the state level to select a megacontainership site. It was developed as part of a Texas Department of Transportation research study into the effects of containerships on the state transportation system but is generic in structure and can be applied at port sites located in other parts of the United States.