----- Having determined the trade volumes , the immediate exercise would be estimate the traffic flows likely to be materialized at the dry port . This volume obviously would be a percentage of the total trade volumes and would be influenced by many factors having a direct or indirect bearing on such traffic .
----- To begin with such commodities as crude oil , petroleum, oil and lubricants, dry bulk cargoes like minerals and ores, coal, cement, fertilizers and heavy structural including steel etc. have to be discounted to the appropriate extent .
----- The general principal to be followed should be to concentrate on containerisable commodities, and general cargo able to containerization .
----- This fact is supported by ever increasing conversion of breakbulk general goods traffic into containerized transport and this being the future scenario, provisions of container handling facilities should suffice at the dry ports.
----- After having obtained the volumes of containerisable commodities, these volumes can be converted into number of containers in terms of Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEU) with the help of a conversion table.Where volumes instead of weight are available-29 cubic meters may be taken as equavalant of one TEU.
----- The traffic flows should then be established in terms of TEUs for export and Import both .
