linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:expansion
Transportation

Consolidating small shipments into large shipments can help to save transportation costs. There are three methods to do this: facility consolidation, multi-stop consolidation, and temporal consolidation. Facility consolidation uses the economics of scale by transporting small shipments over short distances and large shipments over long distances. Multi-stop consolidation makes multiple stops to consolidate small shipments in the case of less-than-truckload shipping. Temporal consolidation adjusts the shipping schedules forwards or backward so as to make a single large shipment rather than several small shipments over time.

Cargo can be consolidated into pallets or containers. There are five basic modes of transport, namely, ship, rail, truck, air, and pipeline operated by different carrier. These shipping methods can be combined in various ways such as intermodal transport (no handling), multimodal transport, and combined transport (minimal road transport). A shipper chooses a carrier by taking into account the total cost of shipment and transit time. Air is the most expensive type of transport, followed by truck, rail, pipeline, and ship.

Cargo can be organized in different shipment categories. Unit loads are usually assembled into higher standardized units such as: ISO containers, swap bodies or semi-trailers. Especially for very long distances, product transportation will likely benefit from using different transportation means: When moving cargo, typical constraints are maximum weight and volume.

Operators involved in transportation include: all train, road vehicles, boats, airplanes companies, couriers, freight forwarders and multi-modal transport operators.

Merchandise being transported internationally is usually subject to the Incoterms standards issued by the International Chamber of Commerce.