Malcom McLean, the owner of a trucking company, invented the cargo container and later founded Sea-Land Services, which started moving containers by sea and truck in the mid-1950s. It wasn't until the 1980s, when their transport rates were deregulated, that railroad companies started moving containers.
Cargo containers arrive in the U.S. by ship, and then move through the country on trucks and rail. In 2007, almost 45 million containers arrived in the U.S. Transportation by ship is the cheapest way to move cargo, according to "Scientific American."
By the late 1990s, cargo containers were transporting more than 95 percent of general cargo from continent to continent, according to Arthur Donovan, author of the paper "Intermodal Transportation in Historical Perspective." Container transport is a highly competitive industry.
