According to the Journal of Commerce, the global performance of the world’s largest ports decreased last year by 3%. The main reason is the difficulties with handling large vessels with a large number of containers, which need to be reloaded within the same call. The largest decrease in productivity was observed in Africa – by 12%, then Latin America – by 8%, then the Middle East ports and ports of India – by 7%, in Northern Europe and North America – by 3%.
Note that the port’s performance is defined as the number of crane operations to move the container in an hour of time spent by the vessel in the port. Since the number of containers to be loaded or unloaded within one call (the size of the call) is the key factor determining the need for a terminal in cranes to process one vessel, the port’s performance indicator is adjusted taking into account the size of the call.