PANAMA CANAL

 Panama Canal is a 48-mile (77.1 km) ship canal in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean to
the Pacific Ocean.
 It connects via Caribbean Sea.
 The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama.
 Panama Canal Project was started in1881 by France, but had to stop because of engineering
problems and high mortality due to disease (Yellow fever and Malaria).
Pictures that shows what the area looked like when the French started building the Canal:

 Later US took the project and took the decade to complete in 1914. Principal Engineer - John
Findlay Wallace, John Frank Stevens (1906–1908), George Washington Goethals.
 It was constructed to enabling ships to avoid the lengthy Cape Horn route around the southern
most tip of South America (via the Drake Passage) or to navigate the Strait of Magellan.
 August 15 1914 it was officially opened
 President Roosevelt wants to build a canal across Panama to help families like yours expand their
trade. He knows that the canal will also help the United States defend itself. With the canal, the
United States could quickly move its warships from one ocean to the other if they were needed to
protect United States interests
 One of the largest and most difficult engineering Project ever Undertaken.
 The largest ships that can transit the canal today are called Panamax.
  The American Society of Civil Engineers has named the Panama Canal one of the seven wonders
of the modern world
Location:
 Panama officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Central America, bordered by Costa
Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean
to the south. The capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to
nearly half the country's 4 million people.

Interesting Panama Canal Facts:

 The territory where the Panama Canal is located was originally Columbian, then French, then
American, and eventually Panamanian.
 Since the canal was first completed in 1914, the annual ship traffic has increased from 1,000 to
14,702 in 2008. In total more than 815,000 ships have passed through the canal (as of 2008).
 The first person to envision the canal was Vasco Nunez de Balboa, who was the first European to
reach the Pacific in the 16th century.
 Many prospectors in the mid-1800s used this route during the California gold rush. Because the
canal did not yet exist they sailed the Atlantic to Panama, crossed the isthmus either on foot,
mules or boat, and then took another ship to California.
 Columbia first granted the right to build the canal to A French adventurer in 1878 named Lucien
Napoleon Bonaparte Wyse.
 The French adventurer sold the rights to a French company who had also built the Suez Canal.
The company eventually went bankrupt.
  When the U.S. gained control of the canal project they decided to build a canal with locks. The
French had only planned on building a sea-level canal. Locks are like water-filled chambers that
can be raised and lowered to move ships from one level to the next.
The Panama Canal helped
 Import and export of goods.
 This created jobs.
 Trading helped to increase the economy.
 Travel became easier and faster.
 Saving Time.
 Affordability.
Current Situation:
 Built two new sets of locks, one each on the Atlantic and Pacific sides, and excavated new
channels to the new locks.
 Widened and deepened existing channels.
 Raised the maximum operating water level of Gatun Lake.
 The Panama Canal expansion was designed to accommodate the growing number of container
and bulk ships that are too large for the original infrastructure.
 The expanded canal has so far attracted 16 new container services, and in August 2018, the canal
set a record for monthly container tonnage, said Argelis Moreno de Ducreux, head of ACP's Liner
Services Segment, in an interview published in the canal's monthly e-newsletter. Since the
expansion, she added, the average size of containerships transiting the waterway has increased by
28 percent.
Recommendation:
Since there are toll charged in every containers that they insert I recommend that for each vessel
segment to be priced based on their respective units of measurement. For example, dry bulk
vessel tolls are be based on deadweight tonnage capacity and metric tons of cargo Liquefied
Natural Gas (LNG) and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) vessels are based on cubic meters
tankers are measured and priced on Panama Canal Universal measurement system tons and
metric tons of cargo containerships are measured and priced and passenger vessels are based on
berths or PC/UMS. also for the first timer, a customer-loyalty program for the container segment.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/why-was-the-panama-canal-built.html
https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/panama-canal
http://www.softschools.com/facts/wonders_of_the_world/panama_canal_facts/102/
https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/panama-canal