Political Sherpa

There are almost 20 million shipping containers worldwide. These continually travel from state to state, or from country to country. They can be hauled by trucks, trains, or loaded into planes and ships. They usually come in 10, 20, and 40 feet variants, although some may be as long as 48 to 53 feet in the United States. There are also special types such as a refrigerated version which is designed to transport perishable materials such as food or medicine, or insulated containers which are for items that need to be protected from extreme temperatures.

For a company that owns or rents out huge numbers of shipping containers, it is most helpful to have in place a reliable container tracking system. It is certainly not enough to have a list of the containers that left the garage and to forward this list to their expected recipients. A hundred things can happen along the way. Containers have been known to be lost or to be delivered elsewhere. Others may have been delivered but after great delays. Still others have been pilfered with only half their contents being delivered.

With an efficient tracking system, managers can immediately determine the exact location of their container or if there is any deviation in its expected route. This should alert them to any possible untoward or undesirable incidents.