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While you didn't have to worry about toll stations in the open ocean, piracy was definitely a problem in the seventeenth century. The basic problem is that the courses of ships are constrained by the winds, the currents, and the distribution of straits, good harbors, and the buyers and sellers of the goods they carry. Pirates could lie in wait outside a harbor, in narrow passages (such as the notorious Straits of Florida), or even just along the "best course" from Cadiz to the West Indies.
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Once civilian aircraft are introduced they will be less vulnerable to predation than ocean vessels. There is really no equivalent to straits, unless the route requires flying over a mountain range and the aircraft is forced to fly along a mountain pass. Suitable sites for airports are much easier to find than good harbors, so if the landing charges become onerous, you can find yourself a cheaper airport site. And piracy (other than hijacking) is quite difficult.
Forecasting Transportation Costs
One of the purposes of this article is to make it easier for authors of stories set in the 1632 universe to figure out what a reasonable transportation cost for sending their widgets from point A to point B might be. Trouble is, even if you have access to seventeenth-century merchants' journals, and can read early modern German (or whatever), they aren't going to have an entry which is exactly in point. So I have tried to develop a more general approach which can provide a plausible number for any plausible combination of goods, route, and mode of transportation.
Even for the most expensive sort of down-time vehicle—a sailing ship—the cost of carriage was primarily the labor cost. Kohn reports that "the wage bill of a Genoese ship sailing to Chios in the fifteenth century was some 4,500 lire while the ship itself was worth less than 5,000"; if the ship were good for perhaps ten such voyages, its "amortized cost" per voyage would be perhaps 500 lire. (Kohn I, p. 15). Braudel says that in the ocean trade, in 1707, the total of rations and pay was about twice the fixed costs (Braudel II, 369–71).
The total wages paid would be proportional to the time spent in transit, and therefore, usually, to the distance traversed. We can compare movement of different goods on different routes by assuming, as a first approximation, that the cost of transport is proportional to the distance covered, and the weight or volume (more on that later) of the goods, and characteristic of the mode of transport chosen (ships, barges, mules, etc.). The standard measure in most economic history literature is the ton-mile, the cost of transporting a ton of goods a distance of one mile.
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Once you have the cost of the contemplated form of transportation expressed on a unit (ton-mile) basis, you can figure out the total cost for any cargo, and any route, which uses comparable means. You just need to be able to determine the effective freight tonnage of the cargo (usually its weight, including packing materials and containers, but sometimes adjusted for volume as explained below), and the length of the route (which is not necessarily a straight line), and multiply the unit cost by these two factors.
While it is convenient to work with costs per ton-mile in order to compare data for different goods, routes, and time periods, the merchant is concerned with the total cost of moving the goods from source to market. Hence, a circuitous seaborne route may actually be more expensive, in toto, than one which plods across terra firma.
The Ton-Mile Method in Action
Based on analysis of a great deal of data (see the Transportation System Addendum), I have come up with ballpark figures for the ton mile rate of various down-time modes of transportation (see Table 2 below). Now let's see how to use those rates.
Example 1: Shipping sewing machines from Eisenach to Hanover. One option is send it overland, which is 110 miles. The road is unimproved, so we would want to use a pack animal train. The sewing machine, in its packed form, weighs perhaps eighty pounds. A mule could readily carry two of them, one on each side. The cost of carriage would be (110 miles) X (10d / long ton-mile) = 1100d (92s; New US$1925) per long ton, and, for one machine, New US$1925 X (80 pounds/2240 pounds per long ton)=New US$69. Transit time is likely to be around seven days.
The other option is to take advantage of the river. It is a longer route (150 miles by water and 35 miles by land). The transit time is perhaps 17 days. The rate calculation is (150 miles) X (1d / long ton-mile) =150d, + (35 miles) X (10d / long ton-mile)=350d, 150d+350d=500d (New US$875) per long ton; and for one 80 pound machine, New US$31.
That assumes that there are no tolls on the river. Tolls can easily double or triple the shipping cost, which would tend to favor the overland route.
Example 2: Shipping ten long tons of Castilla rubber from Central America to a European port, 4,000 miles. (4,000 miles) X (0.1d/ long ton mile) = 400d (New US$700) per long ton, hence 4000d (New US$7000) for the whole shipment. The carriage cost is New US$3.13/pound.
Cost and Price
Bear in mind that if the characters in the story are hiring someone else to transport their goods, the price they pay is going to be higher than the cost to the carrier. That difference will be the carrier's profit, and the profit margin is going to depend on a variety of factors, including the amount of competition on the route in question, and the value per weight of the goods being moved (the pricier they are, the easier it is for the shipper to accept a high transport cost).
The alternative to paying freight charges to a carter or shipowner is to buy (or rent) a suitable vehicle and transport your own goods. The analysis of the costs involved is included in the Addendum. In general, you can probably save 50–75% of the transportation costs by eliminating the middleman (See, e.g., Duncan 49).
Sailing ships have a high carrying efficiency (load per dollar and load per crewman) but also a high absolute price. Thus, characters in the 1632 novels are not likely to buy a ship unless they need to move ten tons or more in a single shipment. Aircraft and railroads, of course, are even more expensive. In fact, in 2000, airlines leased, rather than owned, more than half of their fleet (Harris 26).
While leasing is certainly convenient, it is doubtful whether, in the immediate post-RoF period, it will be available for "big ticket" items like ships, locomotives and aircraft.
Weight and Volume
To a carrier, a ton of feathers is more bother than a ton of lead, since, for the same weight, it takes up more space in the hold, thus diminishing the ability to carry other cargoes. So, they charge more (surprise).
To the Spanish and French, the standard cargo was wine, and hence the "burthen" (carrying capacity) of a ship was originally measured in those terms, resulting in a "tonelada" or "tonneau" being the equivalent of a volume of 40–60 cu. ft., depending on how much allowance was made for the casks and the waste space of the ship. In the Baltic, the standard cargo was grain, resulting in a "tunnage" of 120 to 200 cu. ft. per long ton.
While the shipowners usually want to use a high volume equivalency, so they could charge more for a cargo, once governments levied fees (tolls, port fees, taxes, etc.) based on tonnage, the use of a higher cu. ft. number per ton was to the mariner's advantage. This led to the adoption of a second tonnage measurement, known as the "register ton," whose internationally accepted value is 100 cu. ft. (The British government adopted this value in 1628, at least for the purpose of deciding how to compensate a shipowner if his craft were appropriated for conversion into a warship.)
However, the volume equivalent used to calculating ocean shipping charges remains the "shipping ton" or "freight ton," usually given the value of 40 cu. ft. (Parry, 218–19; Marshall, 97–98). The shipping cost of any product with a specific gravity less than about 1.18 (the ratio of 40 cubic feet to the volume of one long ton of pure water) will be determined by its volume, not by its weight.
Pack horse and wagon carriers charged one-quarter to one-half more for light or bulky goods (Albert 175). Nineteenth-century railroads likewise distinguished between "weight goods" (charged per hundredweight or per ton) and "measurement goods" (charged per cubic f
oot).
Seasonality
The weather affects the ease with which goods can be transported. European traffic slows in the winter. Alpine passes are closed by snow, and rivers and lakes by ice. In southern Russia, the waterways were open nine months of the year, but in the north, they could be used by boats for only a mere six weeks. On the other hand, on land, it was sometimes easier to move goods by winter; animal-drawn sleds were used. (Landes, 247).
The English experience is probably typical of what the USE can expect. Bogart reports that in 1730–39, the average winter carriage rate on turnpikes was 52% higher than the summer rates. Road improvements gradually narrowed the winter-summer rate differential, until, in 1800–09, it was only 4%. (Bogart Table 9, see also Albert 175).
Other Cost Factors
Shipment Size. Large shipments are generally less expensive than small ones. They can take best advantage of large capacity, fuel efficient vehicles. A ten pound parcel might be transported at a rate of $1,000 a ton, whereas a 1000 pound LTL truck shipment is charged one-third that, and a 100,000 pound rail car load is transported for one-thirtieth of the parcel price. (GEO545).
Ballast. In some markets, the principal cargo was light (low density), and, to maintain the proper trim (so it didn't capsize), a ship had to carry ballast if it couldn't find compensatory cargo. Ships bringing cotton from the Levant (Near East) to Northern Italy offered special prices to attract the desired "trim" cargoes; spices traveled at half unit cost (relative to cotton) and heavy bulk goods (potash, salt and alum) at one-quarter unit cost.
Administration. A large single shipment is likely to get a better deal than many small ones, because of reduced administrative costs. A regular customer will do better than an occasional one.
If you are shipping goods which are fragile or perishable, you probably will have to pay for increased care in handling them, or for greater speed in transit.
Differential Pricing. The carrier may charge a higher rate for luxury goods than for bulk goods of low unit value. Moreover, the price may depend on the customer, with a nobleman being charged more than a commoner (but possibly also getting better service, too).
Sometimes there is an explicit attempt to differentiate the transport services provided: first and second class seats on trains; regular and steerage accommodations on ships; business and coach seats on airplanes. This occurred at least as early as the eighteenth century (inside and outside passengers on coaches).
Goods Value and Trading Distance
Shipping charges were a function of the cargo size and volume, and the distance traveled, not (usually) of the value of the cargo. Hence, for high revenue goods, even overland transportation costs were a relatively low percentage of the original cost. Thus, the tendency was to use ships for transporting bulk commodities(low value relative to weight or volume), and pack animals for handling the priciest goods, at least when both seaborne and overland routes were feasible. "In times of peace, trade between the two zones of Europe in luxury goods and manufactures—principally, silks, spices and woolen cloth—was carried overland between Northern Italy and the Low Countries. For goods such as these, the cost of carriage by road was modest." (Kohn I, p. 51). The same was true of other manufactured goods, such as south German firearms and armor (Parry, 163). On the other hand, grain, timber, and coal moved only short distances, ten to twenty miles, by road, and otherwise were shipped by barges and coasters. (Parry, 156–7, 178). Wine, although higher in value, also traveled by water, both because of its bulk and because it traveled better in casks than in goatskins. (Parry, 183).
Intrinsic and Effective Speed
Intrinsic speed is that which can be maintained without resting. Effective long-term speed takes necessary rests into account. For multi-day journeys, it is effective speed which counts.
Travel on poor or bandit-infested roads is mostly limited to daylight hours. If the animals need to forage, that further reduces the road time.
As roads improve, some night travel will be possible. Even in eighteenth-century America, stagecoaches in the east left as early as one in the morning, and arrived at their destination as late as midnight. A few mail coaches traveled all night (Holmes 26, 36).
Night travel requires some illumination, whether that be moonlight, a lantern held by the driver's companion, or a headlight. (Street lights just aren't happening, outside of cities.)
Prolonged travel, of course, requires changing the animals and, more occasionally, the drivers.
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Not only do cars and trucks have higher intrinsic speeds than horses (given adequate roads), they have even higher effective speeds, because they don't tire. Still, to travel all night and day, they would need several shifts of drivers. Eventually, of course, you would need to stop to take on food and water for the crew, and refuel your vehicle.
Trains are faster still and can travel 24 hours a day (assuming crew shifts, which are easier to justify given the greater cargo capacity of a train). It is also possible to resupply a steam locomotive with water while it is still moving.
Boats, like trains, can travel nonstop. This is safest, of course, in the open sea, far from navigational hazards, and with good weather. But if river conditions permitted, barges heading downstream were kept moving after sunset.
The situation of aircraft is somewhat analogous to that of trains and boats; that is, they can carry crews large enough to operate the aircraft nonstop. However, fuel consumption imposes a practical limit on how long their very high intrinsic speeds can be maintained.
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Riding Post. Even pre-RoF, in special circumstances, effective speeds overland could be greater than those at sea. Elizabethan England had a system of post horses, originally available just to government couriers, but later opened to private parties. The posts were usually ten miles apart, and the rider changed horses at each post. At one point there were three systems, the Royal Post, the Merchant Adventurers' Post, and the "Strangers" Post (Walker 50-1).
There were post systems in France, and in the Holy Roman Empire, too. (Crofts 61). According to Braudel, "it was possible, if one was prepared to pay, to have an order taken from Nuremberg to Venice in four days at the beginning of the sixteenth century (Singman, 318)."
The post system was geared to the rapid transport of couriers carrying messages and small packages; it couldn't be used for heavy or bulky goods, and it was extremely expensive. It is best to think of it as the seventeenth century equivalent of an air courier service. Still, it is conceivable that the USE could establish a post system. It doesn't require new technology, just a willingness to make the investment in the post stations and their horses.
Long wagon and stagecoach lines also made use of post stations to expedite traffic.
Vehicle Productivity
A common measure of vehicle productivity (revenue-generating potential) is potential payload times effective speed (OTA). That is because a faster vehicle can make more trips in a given time. Aircraft have a payload (passenger and cargo weight) which is small relative to its total "useful load" (which further includes crew, equipment, provisions, and fuel). The 1934 Sikorsky S-42 had a useful load of 18,236 pounds, but after subtracting equipment (2,181), crew (1,000), and fuel (6,692), the payload was 8,363 pounds (Sikorsky). Payload can be increased, but at the expense of range.
Wait Time and Load Factor
The problem with ships was that they carried so much cargo, that they were hard to fill quickly. According to Ewan Jones, the average length of five mid-sixteenth century round-trip voyages from Bristol to Bourdeaux was 97 days, even though the round-trip sailing time was just twenty days. So the other 77 days were spent waiting for one hundred tons or so of freight. The problem was even more acute over the Bristol to Iberia route; the average length of six voyages was 153 days, while the round-trip sailing time was forty, implying a wait time of 113 days.
A ship which left early, with half a load, was operating at half-efficiency; it would have to charge twic
e as much per ton of cargo to earn the same revenue.
The problem of waiting for cargo, while most acute for ships, was also experienced by wagoners. A carrier traveling from Westchester to London (120 miles) was eight days on the road, but had to dawdle for two days in the expensive capital, waiting for custom, before he could return.
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If your cargo would fill a ship which is empty or only part full, you can get a better deal than if your cargo does not substantially affect the departure date. A similar phenomenon is seen today in the trucking and rail industries; you pay a higher rate for less-than-truckload or less-than-carload shipments. Also, as planes fill, you pay more for the remaining seats.
The extreme example of this phenomenon is when trade is principally in one direction. If a ship routinely returns empty ("deadhaul"), it has to double its freight charges (cp. Meyer 81.) If you can provide a back cargo to a skipper in need of one, you can probably negotiate a lower ton-mile cost than that paid by the original trader.