Have you been in a situation where you have an urgent and important shipment to process, but it cannot be shipped and delivered with just one transport mode?
Well, you are not alone.
Most shipments that are sent out to remote areas or international locations will require you to utilise at least two or more transportation modes. With multiple transportation, you will be able to do this easily. Let us first define multimodal transportation and then explore the advantages and challenges associated with it.
What is Multimodal/Multiple Transportation?
For businesses that cover a large number of locations and reach far and wide to deliver shipments, using multi transportation is a necessity. Multimodal transportation or multiple transportation means exactly what it sounds like - using multiple transportation modes to get your shipment from one point to another.
The key aspect here is that this entire journey will be carried out with the help of a single bill of lading. What’s more, you may even find carriers issuing a combined transport bill of lading or a multimodal bill of lading if the movement is international.
Even though multiple transport modes and carriers are used in a multimodal shipment, the carrier is considered to be liable for the entire process till the shipment reaches the destination location.
As a business, you can either outsource your fulfilment processes to an external company that can help you with the whole process, or you can sign a contract with an agent who can negotiate with various transport agencies on your behalf.
Examples of Multimodality
Say you are looking to courier furniture from Adelaide to London using multimodal transportation. In this process, once the shipment is ready, the carrier will send their vehicles to pick up the container, load it onto a ship, and follow the sea freight courier process.
Once the ship reaches London, the carrier will send another vehicle to pick up the container and load it onto a truck which will then take it to the destination location.
4 Types of Multimodal/Multiple Transportation
Depending on your specific distribution management and logistics needs you can deploy a suitable combination of multimodal transportation modes that will help your shipment get handled safely and delivered faster. Now that you know multi modal meaning you should know about some of the primary types you should consider includes:
1. Sea + Land Transportation
When you have an important shipment that requires handling and efficiency, you will opt for sea freight forwarding. But then, once your shipment does reach a port, you will need the flexibility and reach of land transport to get your shipment to its final destination. This combination of multiple transportation makes sense in this scenario.
Opting for sea freight makes perfect sense when you are dealing with long-distance transport, but once the major leg of the journey is completed, it makes even more sense to opt for a land transport mode such as a train or truck to reach a more localised area.
2. Train + Other Modes of Transportation
When you need a higher cargo capacity and increased efficiency but are not shipping to a very distant location, rail transport is your best option. You will be able to cover short as well as long distances through train but as a shipper you will find yourself preferring air or sea freight for long-distance shipments to save time.
Using a train in combination with other modes of transportation for your shipment is a good strategy to make it reach the nearest station to your final destination, and cover the rest of the more remote journey through road or other popular modes of local transport.
3. Air + Land or Rail Transportation
When your shipment is going to travel a long distance to reach the destination, but you do not have a lot of time on hand, you are more likely to prefer air freight as the transport mode. You may often have shipments that can go from point A to B through air, but will require additional road or rail transportation to reach remote areas.
In such cases, you will find that road transport vehicles or trains are used to pick up goods from the airport and deliver them to the receiver’s doorstep.
4. Intercontinental Transportation
While this is not a transport mode in itself, you will often find yourself preferring this way of transportation in international relocations or shipping. When you have to facilitate the movement of goods across continents, combining different modes of transport is inevitable.
You will be able to use multimodal containers in such cases, to seamlessly switch between transport modes without the need for additional handling after each leg of the journey. Every type of multimodal transport has its own share of pros and cons and you should select one that is appropriate based on your goods, the distance to be covered, and its urgency.
3 Advantages of Multimodal Transportation
The multimodal transportation strategy offers several advantages to shippers and online stores. The primary reason is, of course, being less expensive for the shippers. Here are some of the other advantages you should consider and know about:
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Efficiency of Shipment Tracking: With well-defined multimodal transportation, you, the shipper, can track your shipment in real-time even when the mode of transport changes. The shipping company will let you track and monitor the shipment from the beginning to the end.
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Access to International Customer Base: When you have a shipping partner that can help you with a multimodal transportation strategy, you can extend your access to international markets and customers. The best part is that you will gain this benefit while the liability and accountability are accepted by a single transport company.
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Facilitates Faster Turnaround Times: If your shipment is a part of a priority courier service opted by your customer, you might want to expedite its delivery timeline. With multimodal transportation, you have multiple channels to choose from to ensure that your delivery gets to the customer as fast as possible.
Along with all of these benefits that multiple transportation can offer for your business if you opt for a shipping company to manage these processes, you will also enjoy these benefits with minimal coordination for logistics. So, you will have ample time to focus on the other more strategic areas of your business.
2 Challenges of Multimodal Transportation
Now that we know that multimodal transportation offers some lucrative benefits for businesses that opt for the strategy, it bodes well to understand the challenges associated with it.
1. Excessive Paperwork
Implementing a multimodal transport framework for your logistics will almost inevitably lead to more cumbersome paperwork. You might think that by outsourcing your shipping to a 3PL, your work is done, but in the case of multimodal, it is not that easy. You will have to invoice for different services which means additional processing time for each of these services or part of the process. The process highlights the need for the transportation industry to be more paperless and to get digitised at all levels.
2. Supply Chain Disruptions
In the age of centralised systems and robust mechanisms for real-time tracking and monitoring, shippers are still plagued with supply chain disruptions. When several different modes of transport are involved, you will find that shippers will need security and proactively prepare for any kind of disruptions.
You may also need to have alternative intermodal or multimodal modes for backup in case of a disruption. You will have to implement multiple mechanisms such as contactless deliveries or even additional personnel or processes to ensure that disruptions are tactfully managed.
Intermodal Transportation vs Multimodal Transportation
When we talk about multimodal transportation, we would not get far without the mention of intermodal transportation. After all, there are many advantages of intermodal or multiple modes of transportation systems that you should know about right away.
Intermodal transportation is easily confused with multimodal transportation as both approaches involve leveraging different modes of transportation to take your shipment from the origin location to the destination. However, with multimodal transportation, you will be able to coordinate with just one carrier who takes care of the entire process, and assumes accountability for it.
On the other hand, multimodal definition is that you will be dealing with multi-transport carriers that coordinate for each mode of transport that you utilise in the process. So, the operational process remains the same but you will have more contracts and points of contact or multi-transporters to consider. So with intermodal transportation, you will find yourself having to take a more hands-on approach and get more involved in the process as compared to multimodal transportation.
Example
Let’s assume your online store has to move a large amount of freight from your warehouse in Brisbane Australia to Bali Indonesia. Now, these are two countries that are connected by sea but the proximity of the warehouses from the ports requires you to utilise road transport too.
But in this case, the road transport distance and requirement is not much so you do not necessarily need to track it comprehensively through the same contract. In this case, you will probably utilise sea courier freight and road freight services.
You will have a road transport partner picking up your goods from the warehouse and depositing it to the sea freight forwarder in Australia who will then coordinate with their counterpart in Indonesia. Once your goods reach the Indonesian coast by ship, your road transport partner will again pick them up from the port and deliver them to your local warehouse in Bali.
In the case of intermodal transportation, you will have separate contracts defined with a sea freight service provider, and the road freight partner with terms defined independently for both companies.
Wrapping Up
Whether you choose multimodal transportation or intermodal transportation, the need to leverage multiple modes of transportation while shipping your goods is entirely unavoidable. When managed and streamlined properly, this form of transportation can help you save time, and handle international courier freight with much more ease. What’s more, with the right shipping partner on your side, you will not even have much coordination to do in the process. Contact PACK & SEND, and get a quote based on your requirements so that we can help you streamline your shipping process.