The 'large scheduled container ship' theorem came in w/ MT & DGP.
A later development (later MT or early Virus) was the silly idea that just about all systems would hyper-specialize their production.
(Bertil Jonell made the observation that it seems that most system's production is similar to a system that exclusively produces left-footed shoes & imports *everything* else!  BTW, anyone have any contact info wrt Bertil?)
DGP apparently never understood that the TU had always used the 17th century as a template instead of the, at that time current, 1980's.
Hence there was a dichotomy.
If Tim's calculations are correct (I don't have T5) then it appears that DGP's template has been abandoned & the original CT has been put back in place.
I, for one, welcome that development as I  never could buy into the idea that such a large volume of cargo could continue to be shipped indefinitely w/o eventually being supplanted by in-system (not necessarily on-planet) production.
I believe that someone (Jeff?) posted some text on this subject a while back that allowed for such w/o endangering the 3I's revenue which was one the major arguments used to support MT-DGP's position.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8/22/14, Craig Berry <cdberry@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] expected ship traffic
 To: tml@simplelists.com
 Date: Friday, August 22, 2014, 12:50 PM

 I've
 always thought that most interstellar shipping, like most
 shipping today, would be done by large, scheduled container
 ships. Small independents in their free/far/fat traders
 would fill in gaps -- whether that means visiting a system
 without regular freight service (for whatever reason), or
 getting an urgent cargo delivered ahead of the usual
 schedule, or carrying something the regulars won't touch
 for legal or other reasons. A free trader trying to compete
 head to head against the big guys is doomed; they can't
 beat the economies of scale. Nor will most honest
 business-sophonts do business with a shady tramp
 freighter's crew when the fully bonded, easily sued
 megacorp is an option.

 For shipping volume
 calculations, I recommend Far Trader ( http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/traveller/fartrader/
 ); from what I recall, it produced very reasonable figures.
 (The worked example calculating the traffic between the two
 main Vegan worlds made my head spin.)

 On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at
 11:59 AM, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) <nobody@simplelists.com>
 wrote:

 This
 email was sent from yahoo.com which
 does not allow forwarding of emails via email lists.
 Therefore the sender's email address (philpugliese@yahoo.com)
 has been replaced with a dummy one. The original message
 follows:

 --------------------------------------------

 On Fri, 8/22/14, Timothy Collinson <timothy.collinson@port.ac.uk>
 wrote:

  Subject: [TML] expected ship traffic

  To: "tml@simplelists.com"
 <tml@simplelists.com>

  Date: Friday, August 22, 2014, 9:53 AM

  Hi there,

  Am I reading

  this correctly?  

  page 435 of the T5 core

  rules give a figure for 'expected ship traffic'
 -

  the expected interstellar ship traffic for a

  starport.

  S = 10^Ix /

  H

  where:S = total

  ships per week

  Ix = Importance H = Average Cargo Hold Capacity = 100 for
 most

  worlds

  OK, so I'm looking at

  Neala in Ilelish Sector whose importance = 1

  So I make that a total of 1

  ship every 10 weeks.  And a B class

  starport!

  Is that right or am I

  missing something?

  Nearby Gypsy has an

  Importance of 2 so it manages 1 ship per week.  (And
 again

  a B class starport).

  Is traffic really this

  low?

  cheers

  tc

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 If that's NOT a typo then it so long to MT's
 interpretation of what 'maritime' (post-container
 cargo 20th century Earth) means.

 However, even under the original CT definition (17th century
 Earth), it seems a little 'light'.

 BTW, how much cargo can the CT Free,Far, &
 'Fat'Trader carry?

 p.s. I would argue that whether not not a world is on a J1
 'Main' should also factor in as otherwise the
 ubiquitous FreeTrader can't go there.

 ===================================================================================================

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