Modern trends in the development of container transportation in the world

Highlighting the features and analysis of modern trends in the development of container transportation in the world, determining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on container transportation, which provides an opportunity to outline the main directions of further changes in the global logistics system, is an urgent task and goal of this research article. It has been proven that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global structure of container transportation in the world, namely in relation to: shifting the focus of consumers from the use of sea transport to other types of transport; changes in people’s consumer interests as a result of the epidemiological crisis; the rapid return of the state of the world economies to the level of 2019, which led to a significant increase in the demand for container transportation by large enterprises, this in turn became the main reason for the increase in freight for transportation by ships by more than 100%. It was determined that as a result of the increasing in prices for sea transport, the active development of railway container transportation around the world began. The number of rail container shipments in the world has increased on average from 25 to 50% over the past 2 years. An increase in demand for air transport was also revealed, despite its very high cost compared to other types. Ukraine supports global trends in the growth of container transportation. From 2016 to 2020, the volume of containers passing through seaports of Ukraine increased by 81.1%, the volume of container transportation by rail increased by 78.7%. Therefore, the global logistics system is currently undergoing radical structural changes. In addition, the climate, the anticipated energy transition, as well as the crisis due to the pandemic, create completely different requirements for transport and logistics, as well as lead to a change in the balance between modes of transport and the structure of freight transport.