Economics

The TWORTY BOX is aiming at reducing the container expenses of carriers substantially by cutting …

• empty positioning costs (mostly lift on/lift off charges),
• capital costs (as the entire box fleet can be reduced),
• storage/depot costs (as the entire box fleet can be reduced).
  

On the other hand some additional costs – however being only a fraction of the savings - are caused by …

• the coupling/de-coupling of the TWORTIES,
• integrating some TWORTIES of higher capital costs (compared to standard 20ft boxes) of which each is however replacing more than one conventional standard box into the box fleet.

Naturally maximum savings can be achieved if 2 x TWORTIES are substituting 2 x 20ft and 1 x 40ft standard boxes which would normally be due to be empty positioned in opposite directions. However even if only 2 x 20 ft standard boxes had to be empty positioned without any counterflow of empty 40ft boxes considerable savings could still be realised by using coupled TWORTY BOXES as the costs for coupling/de-coupling are much less than the saved lift on/lift off charges. Consequently the benefit of the TWORTY operation is further increasing with the number of transhipments involved in necessary deadheading.

Depending on the specific trade patterns savings of approx. 20% compared to conventional box operations can be achieved. This magnitude by far exceeds the industries average profit per shipment. Saved costs for slots on board which are not occupied by empty positionings have not even been considered.