Specialists recommending open auto shipping usually point out that it is considerably easier to load and unload open carriers. As many as 33 carriers can be fully loaded in a matter of 2 hours. It may take as long to load only a single car into a container and then to hoist the container onto the container carrier. The loading-unloading process is entirely different, requiring heavy-duty specialized equipment to be present on pick-up and destination sites. Existing container terminals are not adapted for handling cars and special areas have to be separately provided for the process and for the storage of relevant hardware. Separate and remote areas are also required to ensure the safety of client property. Container carriers manage about half of the number of cars an open carrier does.
The vehicle must be professionally handled and secured inside the container to ensure its safety. It is this careful handling and thorough familiarity of the special equipment used in the process that the security of the vehicle relies on. The container used should be specifically designed not only for a car, but in some cases, even to the model of the car. If it is not, securing it inside the container becomes a very complicated affair. No matter, it still requires careful maneuvering to secure the vehicle within the container. This initial process of loading is where most of the damage to the vehicle will occur, discovered only upon unloading at its destination.
On the other hand, in an open carrier damage results from unauthorized access to the cars, easier with open carriers. Vandalism is not an implausible outcome and with open carriers perpetrators do not have to get near the platforms: in some peculiar cases cars have been known to suffer from hunting-rifle fire - sometimes a sport accident, sometimes unsportsmanlike sport. Unauthorized access to closed container interiors is possible but is more difficult.
Crossing a border into a foreign country is difficult if not impossible for long open-carrier trains. Not every country has the same technology and equipment to handle the situation, and when they do, the varying documentation mandated from country to country may cause shipping delays. If long trains are loaded from manufacturing plants deep within foreign lands, when they reach the border of another country, the vehicles will have to be unloaded from the existing truck and loaded onto carriers capable of their transport on the other side of the border. This process opens up the vehicles to damage and theft. Again, the shipment is delayed.
Trans-Pack is an innovative technological advancement meant to solve such problems. This invention is not available everywhere, however. Not all countries offer closed container shipping to any degree.
What Trans-Rack does is enable the carrier to increase its load of vehicles within closed containers while reducing the cost of transportation by around 25%. It also offers safer loading and unloading to guard against damage to the vehicles. The cars utilizing the Trans-Rack system have a much greater chance of arriving intact and undamaged. Severe experiments have been undertaken which included dropping a loaded container from heights of 5 meters causing harm to the containers but not the interior cargo. Trans-Rack is much easier to load and unload, thereby less time is required in the process. A full container can be loaded in 30 minutes. The system also comes with standardized systems of securing the vehicles which not only makes them safer but helps keeps the cost of transportation down.