In the early months of 2006 Drewry Shipping Consultants published a survey beginning with the statement, “Liner shipping reliability is something of a myth”.

Only 57% of the 3,300 vessels surveyed were punctual, it was revealed, and more than 40% arrived at least a day late. 22% of that number berthed one day behind schedule, 7% arrived two days late, and an astonishing 12% turned up three or more days behind schedule.

Drewry has maintained that port hold-ups accounted for much of the tardiness, but those given the responsibility to deal with these costly delays have come up with nothing in the way of improvements during the past year. In fact, things have gotten worse.

Transport ministers from 53 countries met last week in Sofia, Bulgaria, and called for government measures to relieve the global container ship congestion clogging up the delivery of goods at container ports. With traffic expected to double in the next decade or so, putting further pressure on rail and road traffic, the ministers warned that, “The trend is towards more congestion and, without effective policy intervention, much worse congestion”.

What concerned these transport ministers were the latest survey results released by Drewry. The survey revealed that about 73% of container ships arrived late at European ports in the first quarter of 2007 compared to 45% in the same period last year. During the quarter, 23 % of vessels arrived one calendar day late, with another 29% arriving two or more days behind schedule.

First quarter results also revealed that as bad as the performances were in European ports, the percentage of on-time reliability for trans-Atlantic trade routes was among the worst, with only 27% of all vessels arriving on schedule. According to Drewry there were significant variations between the best and the worst services and carriers, with some carriers unable to provide correct data for scheduled arrivals even with a tolerance of five days, but of all the trade routes included in the survey, only the 15% on-time arrival rate in services between North America, the Caribbean and Central America fared worse than the trans-Atlantic trade lanes.

Because of China’s booming economy the situation is not likely to ease, forecasters say, and although Drewry stated that the likelihood of shortages of terminal capacity in many regions around the world “over the next 5 to 10 years” could also have a negative impact on liner shipping reliability, this negative impact is already being felt around the world, and the two related causes are:
• outmoded and inefficient container handling methods, requiring
• the use of excessive amounts of valuable coastal acreage.

And with time-consuming megaships being enthusiastically endorsed by port authorities, is it any wonder that transport ministers are calling for government assistance (intervention?)?

[It’s not just terminal capacity that’s in short supply, there’s also a shortage of gray matter.]