TERMINALS

Terminals are the nodes in a carrier system and perform various duties to facilitate the movement of their passengers or freight. All modes of transportation have their own terminals in one context or another. There are some value added activities at the terminals.

          First, the common activities that provided at the terminals are called concentration or consolidation. This activity takes the small shipments or the smalls group of passengers and combine it becomes to the large shipment. Second, the terminals value added activities are called dispersion or break-bulk. This activity are opposite to the consolidation activity, which are in this activity, they separate the large units of freight or passengers into a small shipment, normally this happen for delivery the cargo or passenger to the final destination.

          Third, the shipment services are also performed at the terminals. These involved the storage of freight or accommodating passengers in transit, the protection of freight or passengers from the elements and routing and billing (ticketing). This activity mostly likely keeps the cargo for a while during the transit to another mode of transportation.

          Next, terminals are used to provide vehicle services include equipment maintenance and the storage of equipment until it is needed. Lastly, terminals can provide shipment process services such as weighing services, custom inspections, claim processing, and interchange operations.

TYPE OF TERMINAL

The terminals for each modes of transportation are different. For the rail modes of transportation, the terminal is called a hump or marshaling yard. Water modes terminals called port which consist of harbor and port. Harbor is the place provided the water portion for the staging, loading and unloading activities of ships, while port is the place that provides space for freight and the loading and unloading equipment.

The APM rail terminal

Water port terminal

For airplane modes of transportation, the terminals are called airport. Which the activity same like water port, it has the area for staging the aircraft during loading and unloading the passenger or cargo. Next for pipelines terminals, it has storage facilities, gathering lines, truck lines, and pumping stations.

Pipeline Terminal

Airport Terminal

For truck road, the terminals are divided by two which for motor carrier (truckload) and motor carrier (less-truck load). For truckload terminals, it consists of one shipment between one consignor and one consignee. Then the facilities provided are dispatching, maintenance and fuel & maintenance service. For the less-truckload terminals, it consists of direct contact with both shippers and receivers. The facilities provided are the pickup and/or delivery of goods. This terminal also called as a pickup and delivery (PUD) terminals or satellite or end-of-the-line (EOL) terminal.

Example of Motor Carrier Terminal