"The container business has been growing at a rate of 5 percent a year historically — that's compound 25 percent every five years," says Kane. "It's one of the fastest growing segments in the transportation industry."
      It's a low-margin, high-volume business, and the railroads have struggled with how to add capacity, while maintaining earnings-per-share growth, if they're investing in a capital-intensive, low-margin business.
      Look for maritime interests to help provide the extra capacity, which will benefit the ports, but more use of the inland rivers for transporting raw materials to facilities or finished products from them will relieve some congestion and could change Louisiana's site selection landscape.
      "Right now, 3,500-TEU [20-foot equivalent unit] ships call on the Port of New Orleans, and most everything that leaves the port moves by truck to an intermodal ramp or direct truck," says Kane. "Container-on-barge, given Louisiana's infrastructure of ports — on the Red River, the Ouachita River and others — provides container shippers and receivers access to low cost transportation in the hinterlands. Alexandria can receive container-on-barge." Furthermore, says Kane, loading and unloading of containers is easily accomplished with common construction cranes. "It opens up container transportation to a lot of industries that otherwise have not enjoyed it."
      In Monroe, in the northern part of the state, the Port of Ouachita is under development, which will serve this important new market, says Kane. "They have customers there who are genuinely excited about the potential of this. Instead of hauling empty containers over the highway to Monroe, stuffing them with product and shipping them back to New Orleans by truck, they will be able to work with carriers to establish container pools in Monroe and load those containers onto barges."