The Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit is a unit of measurement used in container shipping. The abbreviation TEU represents a unit of cargo for maritime transport.
Ships are designed to transport containers in the following two sizes:
- Containers with a length of 20 feet
- Containers with a length of 40 feet
General cargo ships, which are designed to transport individual crates, pallets, and barrels, among other things, have been largely replaced by container ships. At the international level, this led to the creation of units of measurement that make it easier to precisely specify and calculate the available space on a ship—the Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit. However, height is not taken into account and can vary depending on the container. It ranges from 4 feet (half-height containers) to 9 feet (high-cube containers).
The cargo unit TEU refers to the size of a 20-foot container.
The cargo unit FEU stands for Forty-foot Equivalent Unit and denotes the size of a 40-foot container. It is therefore exactly the same size as two TEU.
20-foot and 40-foot are two of the five standard lengths for ISO containers.
Standard lengths of the Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit
The standard lengths in feet and meters are as follows:
- 20 feet (6.1 meters),
- 40 feet (12.2 meters),
- 45 feet (13.7 meters),
- 48 feet (14.6 meters)
- and 53 feet (16.2 meters).
The advantages of international units of measurement include:
- the ability to plan ship loading with precision
- and to make concrete plans for subsequent transport by, for example, truck or rail.
The capacity of container ships varies. The world’s largest cargo ships can even be loaded with up to 18,000 standard containers, measured in TEU. Container ships operating on major routes between Asia and Europe can transport containers starting at 4,500 TEU, while cargo ships with a capacity of 3,000 to 10,000 TEU are typically used for medium- and long-haul transport. Smaller ships up to approximately 1,500 TEU are generally expected to serve a regional supply and distribution function.
For information on different warehouse designs, please visit Common Warehouse Designs.
Image license: CC BY-SA 3.0, Author: KMJ
