Inland port

This article is about a shipment facility on a river, or canal. For a facility without water access, see dry port.

The term inland port is used in two different but related ways to mean either a port on an inland waterway or an inland site carrying out some functions of a seaport.

As a port on an inland waterway

An inland port in the wide sense, as used in common speech, is simply a port on an inland waterway such as a river, lake or canal. The United States Army Corps of Engineers publishes a list of the Top 20 Inland U.S. Ports for 2003 and for this purpose states that 'Inland Ports' are ports that are located on rivers and do not handle deep draft ship traffic. The list includes familiar ports such as St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Memphis.

As an inland site with seaport function

Port of Montreal, the world's largest inland port and Canada's second busiest port

The term inland port is also used in a narrow sense in the field of transportation systems to mean a rather more specialized facility that has come about with the advent of the intermodal container (standardized shipping container) in international transport. Rather than goods being loaded and unloaded in such ports, shipping containers can just be transferred between ship and road vehicle or ship and train. The container may be transferred again between road and rail elsewhere and the goods are only loaded or unloaded at their point of origin or final destination.

Shipping containers allow some functions traditionally carried out at a seaport to be moved elsewhere. Examples are the functions of receiving, processing through customs, inspecting, sorting, and consolidating containers going to the same overseas port. Container transfer at the seaport can be sped up and container handling space can be reduced by transferring functions to an inland site away from the port and coast.

Distribution may also be made more efficient by setting up the link between inland site and seaport as, say, a high-capacity rail link with a lower unit cost than sending containers individually by road. The containers are still collected from their origins or distributed to their ultimate destinations by road with the transfer happening at the inland site.

An Inland Port is just such an inland site linked to a seaport. This kind of inland port does not require a waterway. It is often written with initial capitals to indicate a difference to the common usage. Key features of an Inland Port are the transfer of containers between different modes of transportation (intermodal transfer) and the processing of international trade. This differentiates an inland port from a container depot or transport hub.

The term inland port may also be used for a similar model of a site linked to an airport or land border crossing rather than a seaport.

The definition of inland port in the jargon of the transportation and logistics industries is:

"An Inland Port is a physical site located away from traditional land, air and coastal borders with the vision to facilitate and process international trade through strategic investment in multi-modal transportation assets and by promoting value-added services as goods move through the supply chain". — Center for Transportation Research, University of Texas.

Inland Ports may also be referred to as dry ports or intermodal hubs. Montreal has the largest inland port in the world.

Advantages of inland location

The idea is to move the time-consuming sorting and processing of containers inland, away from congested seaports.

An inland port could also speed the flow of cargo between ships and major land transportation networks, which would carry goods to the rest of the country.

Examples on inland waterways

Examples of 'inland ports' in the first, wide usage are

Africa

• - Mwanza - inland port in Tanzania on Lake Victoria.
• - Kigoma - inland port in Tanzania on Lake Tanganyika.

Examples of inland sites

Africa

• - Rouiba Inland Port - Rouiba, Algeria 20 kilometres (12 mi), east of Algiers.
• - Boankra Inland Port - Kumasi, Ghana - Under construction.
• - Viana, Angola

---

• - Kisumu Inland Port - Kisumu, Kenya - (on Lake Victoria) - See: Transport in Kenya
• - Embakasi Inland Port - Embakasi, Kenya
• - Eldoret Inland Port - Eldoret, Kenya
• - Nairobi Inland Port - Nairobi, Kenya
• - Swaziland Inland Port - Mbabane, Swaziland
• - Tororo Inland Port, Tororo, Uganda.
• - Port Bell Inland Port - Port Bell, Uganda (on Lake Victoria)
• - Chipata Inland Port - Chipata, Zambia - Under construction

Asia

• - Vallarpadam Dry Port - Kochi, India
• - Sialkot Dry Port - Sialkot, Pakistan.
• - Lahore Dry Port - Lahore, Pakistan

Europe

• - Duisburg Inland Port - Duisburg, Germany - Largest inland port in the world
• - Port of Seville - Seville, Spain - The only inland port in Spain

North America

• - Port of Montreal - Montreal, Quebec, Canada - Port of Montreal
• - CentrePort Canada - Manitoba, Canada - CentrePort Canada
• - Port of Richmond - Richmond, Virginia - Port of Richmond
• - Virginia Inland Port - Front Royal, Virginia, USA.

Oceania

• - Kewdale Freight Terminal - Kewdale, Australia
• - Minto Inland Port - Minto, New South Wales, Australia - Inland Port for Port Botany
• - Brighton Transport Hub - Hobart, Australia - Under construction.
• - Ettamogah Inland Port - Albury, Australia
• - Dooen Inland Port - Dooen, Victoria, Australia
• - Warrnambool Inland Port - Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia
• - Shepparton Inland Port - Shepparton, Victoria, Australia
• - Altona Inland Port - Altona, Victoria, Australia
• - Somerton Inland Port - Somerton, Victoria, Australia
• - Direk Inland Port - Direk, South Australia
• - Wiri Inland Port - Auckland, New Zealand

Proposed

North America

• - Martinsburg Inland Port - Martinsburg, West Virginia, USA

See also

• Dry port
• Sea port
• List of dry ports in Pakistan