According to an article, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/faster-c ... -notteboom which mentioned about how the adaption of slow steaming method (as in driving cargo ship slower to save money) have widened the gap in speed and price from ship transportation to air and rail transportation.

It said, between Europe and Asia, the slow steaming method mean it take 5 or 6 days more for cargo to finish the route, while faster transportation method are more expensive and doesn't offer the capacity that ship would offer, and thus the author of the article think there is a gap in the transportation industry that could be filled to match the need of high-volume time-sensitive cargos.

What kind of technology would be a more voluminous alternative to air and rail transport while faster than ships?

The article used Eurasia cargo movement as an example which there are Eurasia rail line that can provide rail transportation service, but what are the alternatives for markets like TPAC or TATL that does not have rail connections other than air?

There's been discussion for years about bringing back airships to fill that gap. Big, big airships that can carry a few hundred tons of cargo over great distances at a lower cost than a jet aircraft but not really sacrifice that much time in transit.

https://gizmodo.com/the-aluminum-airshi ... 1301320903

There are still express ships which aren’t slow steaming, they fill that gap.

Kiwirob wrote:

There are still express ships which aren’t slow steaming, they fill that gap.

There aren't that many.

The best example is Matson's TPAC express service with their comparatively-tiny vessels. They tried adding capacity to the loop a few years ago but couldn't sustain it. No one wants to pay for it. And one of the biggest reasons that they can sustain the capacity that they do have in service is because their eastbound legs are actually their backhaul, not their headhaul. They are headhauling from the mainland US to American locales in the Pacific like Hawai'i and Guam and backhauling from China.

Shippers time and time again prove they care about one thing: price. Quality and speed are meaningless no matter what a shipper says. Hell, I work for a company that is in one of the most massively regulated industries in the world in terms of quality. We should be leading the charge for reliable, comparatively-fast ocean service. Yet when it comes to contract time, we care about price and that's it. Sure, people whine and moan incessantly when shipments take longer than expected or cargo gets rolled or we have very long unplug time at terminals, but we have not the slightest desire to actually pay for top-tier service. We're no different than almost every other shipper out there.

Not to Forget that air freight offers different categories of Speed, from next flight out to fill-up.

Pipelines are better at moving liquids and gases than sea, rail and truck. However some people freak out about petroleum movements regardless of how its moved. There have been fires from moving oil by rail, one really bad one in Quebec. However if you want to build a pipeline it is politically unpopular in a certain segment of society and will be blocked by environmentalists So moving petroleum safely and quickly isn't important to a lot of people. Building a pipeline across vast oceans isn't viable at this time, so ships are still the best way to move liquids. However moving liquids across large areas of land or under/over smaller bodies of water by pipeline makes the most sense.

Kiwirob wrote:

There are still express ships which aren’t slow steaming, they fill that gap.

Careful there in the China Sea... you could end up running into another ship, or being run into by a US Navy ship in those parts...

DIRECTFLT wrote:

Kiwirob wrote:

There are still express ships which aren’t slow steaming, they fill that gap.

Careful there in the China Sea... you could end up running into another ship, or being run into by a US Navy ship in those parts...

know I shouldn't laugh at misfortunes but can't help it. A well-oiled military machinery run so incompetently at ludicrous frequencies.

falstaff wrote:

Pipelines are better at moving liquids and gases than sea, rail and truck........

I'm looking forward to the day when pipelines are in regular scheduled service, zipping people around great distances at higher-than-jetliner speeds.
That said, I probably wouldn't live to see those vac-tubes or evacuated tubes ideas come to commercial fruition.