European and North American Freight Transportation Systems

European and North American Freight Transportation Systems
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European and North American Freight Transportation Systems
North America and Europe tend to have similar states of economic development with containerized flows that are largely depended on imports, but with notable regional differences. The world freight system is predominantly influenced by convergence in the basis of infrastructure, technology, terminals, and policies (Rodrigue & Notteboom, 2010). While there are strong converging forces between the European and North Americans’ logistical practices in these two countries are seen to be far from being identical from each other. It is evident that the North America and Europe are never on the same path when it comes to logistics. In this respect, Rodrigue and Notteboom (2010) note that even though the two countries tend to converge in term of information technology, globalization, and over containerization, the corridors, gateways, regulations, hinterlands, value chain management, governance, and labour are critical to understand how Northern America and Europe differ in terms of their freight distribution systems. Important also to note in these two countries’ are the political, geographical, and cultural factors that convey a significant regionalism to their modes of freight distribution (Rodrigue, 2000).
There is a significant level of concentration of trade activities along the North America’s coastline which has significant manufacturing hitherlands and resources. For instance, up to 55 percent of the containers are handled at the Pacific Coast, which exerts increased pressure on the main gateways (Rodrigue, 2009). Contrary, in Western Europe, hitherland is both intense along the coast and along the Rhine river system including its f...