Traffic through the Panama Canal is a barometer of world trade, rising in times of world economic prosperity and declining in times of recession. From a low of 807 transits in 1916, traffic rose to a high point of 15,523 transits of all types in 1970. The cargo carried through the canal that year amounted to more than 132.5 million long tons (134.6 million metric tons). Although the number of annual transits has decreased since then, the canal carries more freight than ever before because the average size of vessels has increased. There were nearly 210 million long tons (213 million metric tons) of cargo through the canal in 2013.

The principal trade routes served by the Panama Canal run between the following points: the east coast of the U.S. mainland and Hawaii and East Asia; the U.S. east coast and the west coast of South America; Europe and the west coast of North America; Europe and the west coast of South America; the east coast of North America and Oceania; the U.S. east and west coasts; and Europe and Australia.

Trade between the east coast of the United States and East Asia dominates international canal traffic. Among the principal commodity groups carried through the canal are motor vehicles, petroleum products, grains, and coal and coke.

Panama Canal Authority

The Panama Canal Authority (Spanish: Autoridad del Canal de Panamá [ACP]) took over management of the canal from the joint U.S.-Panamanian Panama Canal Commission at noon on December 31, 1999. Created by an amendment to the Panamanian constitution as an autonomous agency of the Panamanian government, the ACP is charged with the administration, operation, conservation, maintenance, and modernization of the Panama Canal. It is also tasked with the care, maintenance, and preservation of water resources in the entire Panama Canal watershed. The watershed is essential to the operation of the canal, and it also supplies water to cities at either end of the canal route.

The ACP is governed by a board of directors that consists of 11 members. The chairman, who has the rank of minister of state for canal affairs, is selected by the president of the republic. The legislative branch of the government designates one director, and the remaining nine members are appointed by the president with the concurrence of the cabinet council. They must be ratified by an absolute majority of the legislative assembly.

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Tolls

While the canal was under U.S. administration, tolls for its use were set at rates calculated to cover costs of maintenance and operation, thereby making the canal self-financing. The charge for each transit was based upon the interior cargo or passenger-carrying capacity of a vessel. The rates established in 1914 remained virtually unchanged for 60 years. In 1973 the canal operated at a loss for the first time, and in 1974 the first of several rate increases went into effect.

Traditionally, cargoes were carried below deck, and tolls were assessed on goods carried there. However, because of changes in marine design and the widespread use of containerized cargoes, a large portion of the burden is now carried on deck. The volume of containerized cargo passing through the canal is outranked only by shipments of grain and petroleum products. Those changes led to modifications in rules of admeasurement and the assessment of tolls for on-deck container capacity, and a segmentation system based on vessel type and size was implemented. Following the lead of the Panama Canal Commission, the ACP approved similar changes in admeasurement regulations and retained the U.S. toll rates in effect when the canal was transferred.

In 2006 the ACP announced that its expansion programs would be financed by a new series of toll increases, sparking much debate and opposition from canal users. It was not until 2012 that the cabinet council approved a proposal to restructure the Panama Canal’s pricing system, and the two stages of the toll increase were implemented in October 2012 and October 2013. The new toll structure increased the number of segments from 8 to 10. The tanker segment was separated into three segments: petroleum and petroleum products tankers, gas vessels carrying liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and chemical vessels. Roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) vessels, which are designed to carry wheeled cargo, became part of the vehicle carrier segment, and the container/break-bulk segment was eliminated. Tolls for general cargo, dry bulk, tanker, chemical tanker, LPG, and vehicle carrier and ro-ro were increased.

From the tolls collected, the ACP must pay an annual fee to the Panamanian national treasury. Any surplus remaining after that and the payment of canal operational and maintenance expenses also goes to the treasury.

Lesseps’s failed attempt

The first attempt to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama began in 1881 after the Colombian government granted a concession to the privately owned Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique. The company, under the leadership of Ferdinand de Lesseps, was financed by French capital from countless small investors. Because of Lesseps’s recent triumph building the Suez Canal, he was able to attract public support for building a sea-level canal across Panama. That proposal was protested strongly by Adolphe Godin de Lépinay, baron de Brusly, an engineer who had studied the isthmus. Lépinay knew the surface features at Panama: the Continental Divide 9 miles (15 km) from the Pacific, the torrential Chagres River flowing into the Atlantic, and the smaller Río Grande flowing into the Pacific—both rivers suitable for creating artificial lakes. In 1879 he proposed a “practical” plan for building a canal, calling for a dam at Gatún and another at Miraflores (or as close to the seas as the land would permit), letting the waters rise to form two lakes about 80 feet (25 metres) high, joining the lakes by cutting across the Continental Divide, and connecting them to the oceans through locks.

Lépinay’s conception eventually established him as an architectural and engineering genius and as the originator of the plan from which the Panama Canal was built. Unfortunately for the French, however, his idea was ignored at the time, and the Compagnie Universelle embarked on its ill-fated undertaking. Lesseps was unfamiliar with conditions in Panama or was unwilling to acknowledge that they were vastly different from Suez. Unlike the arid desert of the Isthmus of Suez, Panama was a tropical jungle, with diluvial rains, debilitating heat and humidity, and tropical diseases. Topographic conditions along the proposed route varied considerably and ranged from coastal marshes to the mountains of the Continental Divide. Despite competent engineering, there was no sound overall plan. Machinery used to dig the canal was either too light or ill-suited for the tough inland terrain, and disease took a terrible toll in workers’ lives.

Progress was costly and extremely slow. As a cost-saving measure, the plans for a sea-level canal were eventually dropped in favour of a high-level lock-type canal, but that change had little effect. With no foreseeable return on its investment, the French public lost faith in the project and its leader. Attempts at further financing failed, and the company collapsed in 1889. Although the company reorganized in 1894, it virtually ceased to function by 1898. Any possibility of completing the canal across Panama was gone; its sole hope lay in holding together an enterprise that could be offered for sale. In the end, less than half of the excavation made by the French was used in the U.S. canal.