The H1 2024 port congestion report from UK-based Beacon poses an interesting question about how the supply chain and visibility platform measures “port congestion.”

Founded in 2018 by former Uber executives Fraser Robinson (CEO) and Dmitri Izmailov (COO), along with ex-Amazon CTO Pierre Martin, Beacon uses AI, data science, and automation to simplify global logistics. In June 2020, the UK-based digital freight forwarder gained attention by securing US$15 million in Series A funding, with high-profile investors including Jeff Bezos.

The new report identifies the five “most congested ports globally and measures their congestion levels, which are shown in the table below.

Table 1: Top 5 congested ports globally

WorldCargo News has approached Beacon to gain a clearer understanding of their methodology for measuring port congestion. Beacon said that its index calculates “port congestion as the combination of average vessel anchor and berth times at a given port in a given month. Anchor time refers to the time the vessel spends in the harbour before it is able to berth, while berth time refers to the total time spent unloading and loading the ship before it departs again.”

However, when asked if Beacon had data on the number of containers exchanged during the call—a crucial factor for analysing trends in time at berth—the company stated that it did not have insights into container volumes.

This goes some way to explaining how Los Angeles has come to be counted as the fourth most congested port globally. Berthing time has always been relatively long at Los Angeles (and Long Beach) because the ports handle very large call sizes. The average call size in Los Angeles is over 10,000 TEU per vessel, whereas Chittagong in Bangladesh is limited to 2,000 TEU vessels at most.

Simply put without knowing how many containers a port handles within a time period it is not really possible to make any sound conclusions about whether a port is congested or not based on AIS data. The Port of Los Angeles is not currently experiencing any congestion issues in the sense of vessels waiting for a berth or equipment, which is what “congestion” usually refers to. The 30-day rolling average for time at berth in Los Angeles currently sits at 4.3 days, which is above the figure produced by Beacon above, but in the context of the call exchanges the port handles does not sound any alarm bells about congestion. Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka could point to 4.3 days and say operations are fluid, and that would be a fair comment.

While there are issues with how the Beacon Port Congestion Index measures congestion and ranks ports, it does capture changes in port call time that highlight issues in different locations.

Table 2: Port congestion – 5 ports with the largest increases (Q2 vs Q1)

Table 2 shows the five ports with the largest increase in “congestion” in Q2 compared to Q1 as measured by Beacon.

Port of Charleston declined to comment on its ranking but has earlier said that it experienced a temporary backlog following a software issue in May and construction work at Wando Welch that resulted in vessels waiting for a berth for up to 48 hours at times.

Charleston’s problem is not related to dynamic events across global supply chain, or external events like the Red Sea crisis. The port was doing construction work on the toe wall at its Wando Welch Terminal in sections, and when this work got to the middle of the quay it was not possible to berth three vessels simultaneously. The port decided to pause the project and resume construction again sometime in August.

WCN understands that the current situation is that Charleston is operating with 1-2 ships waiting for a berth at times.

In measuring change in its own index over time Beacon has clearly captured an important industry trend, but the Port Congestion Index does not have the depth of data to really attribute what it is measuring to “congestion”. Beacon found that 64% of Southeast Asian ports it analysed saw rising congestion over the quarter. In SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent, nine of 14 analysed ports saw congestion increase, led by Manila, Chittagong and Kelang. Singapore had the 4th worst % increase at 19.62% with the highest % increase being Manila, Philippines at 43.32%. In Europe 12 of 18 ports reported increasing congestion. St Petersburg had the highest H1 average at 2.54 days, followed by Marsaxlokk (1.95 days) and Felixstowe (1.94 days).

Again, however, without knowing how many containers were handled over the comparison periods it is not really fair to say too much about port congestion. Singapore, for example has explained that it has seen both an increase in vessel call sizes and an increase in re-handlings (overstows) in the first half of 2024. There are delays waiting for a berth, but the port is also doing more work.

The H1 2024 port congestion report from UK-based Beacon poses an interesting question about how the supply chain and visibility platform measures “port congestion.”

Founded in 2018 by former Uber executives Fraser Robinson (CEO) and Dmitri Izmailov (COO), along with ex-Amazon CTO Pierre Martin, Beacon uses AI, data science, and automation to simplify global logistics. In June 2020, the UK-based digital freight forwarder gained attention by securing US$15 million in Series A funding, with high-profile investors including Jeff Bezos.

The new report identifies the five “most congested ports globally and measures their congestion levels, which are shown in the table below.

Table 1: Top 5 congested ports globally

WorldCargo News has approached Beacon to gain a clearer understanding of their methodology for measuring port congestion. Beacon said that its index calculates “port congestion as the combination of average vessel anchor and berth times at a given port in a given month. Anchor time refers to the time the vessel spends in the harbour before it is able to berth, while berth time refers to the total time spent unloading and loading the ship before it departs again.”

However, when asked if Beacon had data on the number of containers exchanged during the call—a crucial factor for analysing trends in time at berth—the company stated that it did not have insights into container volumes.

This goes some way to explaining how Los Angeles has come to be counted as the fourth most congested port globally. Berthing time has always been relatively long at Los Angeles (and Long Beach) because the ports handle very large call sizes. The average call size in Los Angeles is over 10,000 TEU per vessel, whereas Chittagong in Bangladesh is limited to 2,000 TEU vessels at most.

Simply put without knowing how many containers a port handles within a time period it is not really possible to make any sound conclusions about whether a port is congested or not based on AIS data. The Port of Los Angeles is not currently experiencing any congestion issues in the sense of vessels waiting for a berth or equipment, which is what “congestion” usually refers to. The 30-day rolling average for time at berth in Los Angeles currently sits at 4.3 days, which is above the figure produced by Beacon above, but in the context of the call exchanges the port handles does not sound any alarm bells about congestion. Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka could point to 4.3 days and say operations are fluid, and that would be a fair comment.

While there are issues with how the Beacon Port Congestion Index measures congestion and ranks ports, it does capture changes in port call time that highlight issues in different locations.

Table 2: Port congestion – 5 ports with the largest increases (Q2 vs Q1)

Table 2 shows the five ports with the largest increase in “congestion” in Q2 compared to Q1 as measured by Beacon.

Port of Charleston declined to comment on its ranking but has earlier said that it experienced a temporary backlog following a software issue in May and construction work at Wando Welch that resulted in vessels waiting for a berth for up to 48 hours at times.

Charleston’s problem is not related to dynamic events across global supply chain, or external events like the Red Sea crisis. The port was doing construction work on the toe wall at its Wando Welch Terminal in sections, and when this work got to the middle of the quay it was not possible to berth three vessels simultaneously. The port decided to pause the project and resume construction again sometime in August.

WCN understands that the current situation is that Charleston is operating with 1-2 ships waiting for a berth at times.

In measuring change in its own index over time Beacon has clearly captured an important industry trend, but the Port Congestion Index does not have the depth of data to really attribute what it is measuring to “congestion”. Beacon found that 64% of Southeast Asian ports it analysed saw rising congestion over the quarter. In SE Asia and the Indian subcontinent, nine of 14 analysed ports saw congestion increase, led by Manila, Chittagong and Kelang. Singapore had the 4th worst % increase at 19.62% with the highest % increase being Manila, Philippines at 43.32%. In Europe 12 of 18 ports reported increasing congestion. St Petersburg had the highest H1 average at 2.54 days, followed by Marsaxlokk (1.95 days) and Felixstowe (1.94 days).

Again, however, without knowing how many containers were handled over the comparison periods it is not really fair to say too much about port congestion. Singapore, for example has explained that it has seen both an increase in vessel call sizes and an increase in re-handlings (overstows) in the first half of 2024. There are delays waiting for a berth, but the port is also doing more work.