River Transport (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what river transport is, its advantages, disadvantages and other characteristics. Also, differences with maritime transport.

What is river transport?

River transport is made up of those modes of water transport that occur in lakes, rivers and fluvial channels provided with adequate depth. This type of transportation plays a very important role in contemporary economic dynamics, despite the fact that its origins, strictly speaking, date back to the beginnings of humanity.

River transport can deal with the movement of goods and merchandise, or also passengers. In many cases it serves as a link between two important maritime regions, as is the case with the Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Its importance is such that in many cases it is invested in the adaptation of some rivers of sufficient volume to make them passable and commercially viable.

Many of the great rivers of the world, such as the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Danube, the Rhine, the Thames, the Douro or the Río de la Plata, are navigable and offer an important opportunity for the development of river transport in different proportions depending on the case.

Features of river transport

River transport can occur in three specific ways:

Regular line services. Those transportation routes that obey a predefined, fixed and stable pattern and trajectory, under a bill of lading contract issued by the ship to the shipper.
Boat services without a fixed route. Also known as general service, it is a type of transportation that is not guided by established routes or regular itineraries, preferring instead to transport passengers or goods according to a more versatile criterion.
Oil tanker services. The presence of oil transport is such in the river sector that they form a type in themselves. These are, of course, ships adapted to transport substances such as gasoline, paraffin or lubricants, if not recently extracted crude oil.

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Whatever the case, what these modes have in common is that they take place in rivers, lakes or canals, generally with the purpose of connecting landlocked regions but with access to internal bodies of water.

River and sea transport

The fundamental difference between river and maritime transport has to do, obviously, with the body of water that their ships cross. Maritime transport moves across seas and oceanswhile in the case of fluvial, lakes, rivers and other continental bodies of water.

This difference is not minor, since The design and handling of the boats for each type are quite differentgiven that many rivers and lakes lack the depth and breadth that the seas have, thus requiring more specialized work.

Advantages of river transport

river transport advantages — River transportation can be more economical than land or sea options.

River transport presents important advantages for the population that benefits from it, since in many cases they do not have access to the sea and without river transport they would be forced to rely 100% on land transport, which represents an important limitation.

On the other hand, the ships They generally allow the movement of greater volumes of material or people than by land.so its economic importance is in many cases undeniable.

On the other hand, it is a type of transport much more economical, practical and short term than maritimewith low accident rates and noise or gas pollution, compared to land transportation.

Disadvantages of river transport

At the same time, river transportation presents important challenges, such as:

The deterioration of river channels. Since rivers often require treatment, widening or preparation to be navigable, and this has a high local ecological cost, despite the fact that the boats are generally low polluting.
Seasonal use. Many rivers become impassable depending on the season, either because they flood and overflow, or because they dry up and lose navigability. This greatly limits the usefulness of river transport.
Environmental risk due to spills. Given the incidence of oil tankers in river transportation, the risk of spills is constant.

River transport boats

river transport tanker — Tankers can transport large volumes of liquid or gas.

River transport imposes the need for very specific vessels, which we can broadly classify into:

Freighters. Merchandise ships, which typically transport few passengers and a lot of merchandise, generally consisting of packaging, cereals, minerals, liquids, etc.
Container ships. With a very high level of specialization, they are capable of uploading and downloading their content in a single day, almost always industrial in nature. They usually connect with rail or maritime transport.
Tankers. Tankers and other ships designed to transport liquids and gases (such as liquefied natural gas), or fuels and hydrocarbons.
Passenger ships. Designed in different ways and with different passenger capacities, they range from motorboats and boats to river cruises.

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