In fact, the growth of the amount of freight being traded, as well as, a great variety of origins and destinations promotes the importance of international transportation as a fundamental element supporting the global economy. In particular, since the trading distances involved are often considerable, there has been an increase of demands on the maritime shipping industry and on port activities.
In this process China had an important role, in fact, as its industrial and manufacturing activities developed, it started to import growing quantities of raw materials and energy and export growing quantities of manufactured goods, fostering a surge in demands for long distance international transportation.
International transportation system have been under increasing pressures to support additional demands in freights volume and distance at which this freight is been carried.
This couldn’t have occurred without considerable technical improvements permitting to transport larger quantities of goods, and this more quickly and more efficiently. Container played, of course, a crucial role, promoting, furthermore, the development of the intermodal transport.
Intermodal transport modes recover an important role in international transportation, in fact, because of the involved geographical scale, most international freights movements involve several modes, especially when origins and destinations are far apart.
Among the numerous transport modes, two are specifically concerned with international trade:
Ports and maritime shipping
Airports and air transports
Maritime transportation is very important in international trades, in fact in terms of tonnage it handles about 90% of the global trade.
Although in terms of tonnage air transportation carries an insignificant amount of