A new study from Sea-Intelligence revealed that the size and connectivity of ports are not correlated to their reliability. Examining over 14 years of vessel call data from 202 major deep-sea ports, the study ranked port performance based on schedule reliability. It placed greater emphasis on data from recent years, as a better indicator of future performance, while also considering vessel call volume. “The more port calls in a month, the more chances there are for something to go wrong, which makes maintaining a higher reliability figure that much more difficult,” explained the analyst.
Santa Marta in Colombia emerged as the most reliable port with a 94.5% on-time record. Paita in Peru ranked second, followed by Puerto Bolivar in Ecuador, Puerto Moin in Costa Rica, and Fort-de-France in Martinique, which rounded out the top five. Interestingly, smaller ports outperformed many major hubs; the findings showed that 12 of the top 20 ports in Central and South America, six in Europe, and none from Asia. This stands in contrast to Alphaliner’s 2024 ranking of the world’s top ports, which reported that the five largest container ports by volume are situated in Asia.
Among the 20 ports with the highest vessel traffic, the average ranking was 124th, with a schedule reliability of only 60.3%. Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia was the only port to break into the top 60, achieving 46th place. Other major ports performed even lower: Shanghai ranked 169th; Singapore ranked 145th; Rotterdam ranked 106th; and the U.S. ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach ranked 124th and 155th respectively.
Sea-Intelligence pointed out that while schedule reliability is influenced more by vessel operations than by the ports themselves, port reliability remains a meaningful performance indicator. “This goes to show that the most well-connected ports within the global deep-sea trades are also some of the most unreliable. And while this is not entirely the fault of the port, as schedule reliability is largely dictated by the vessel, it is still a relevant metric of port performance,” stated Sea-Intelligence’s CEO, Alan Murphy.
Source: Sea-Intelligence
