IN Brief:
- Export cargo for more than 15 vessels arrived over 2 and 3 October, creating temporary queues at JNPA terminal gates.
- Terminal yard inventory fell from 120,173 TEU on 2 October to 94,519 TEU by 6 October as containers were evacuated.
- JNPA reported average truck turnaround of 1.47 hours after terminal, freight station and traffic operations stabilised.
Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority has returned container traffic to normal after vessel bunching and a concentrated surge in export cargo created temporary queues around the Mumbai gateway. Export cargo for more than 15 vessels arrived over 2 and 3 October, compressing activity that would normally have been distributed over a longer period and increasing demand across berth, gate and yard operations at the same time.
Quay handling reached 35,307 TEU on 4 October and 32,972 TEU on 5 October while 16 to 17 container vessels were being handled simultaneously during the peak. Landside activity was also concentrated, with 21,796 TEU moving through the port on 18,391 trucks on 2 October followed by 20,684 TEU across 17,535 trucks the next day.
Those volumes created a sequencing problem because export containers need to arrive early enough to meet their assigned vessel without occupying terminal space for longer than necessary. When several ships arrive close together, boxes associated with different loading plans enter the yard at the same time, so planners have to maintain access to the containers needed first while continuing to receive later cargo. Higher stack density can quickly translate into more repositioning moves and slower retrieval.
JNPA increased coordination between terminal operators, container freight stations and local traffic authorities, while gate automation and additional deployment helped absorb the surge. Truck volumes eased to 19,294 TEU across 16,332 vehicles on 4 October and 16,972 TEU across 15,045 vehicles on 5 October, after which average truck turnaround across the port reached 1.47 hours.
Terminal yard inventory fell from 120,173 TEU, equivalent to 66.89% occupancy, on 2 October to 94,519 TEU, or 52.61%, by 6 October. Removing more than 25,000 TEU over four days created more room around the remaining stacks and reduced the number of surrounding boxes that could have to be repositioned before a target container became accessible.
Container freight stations absorbed part of the same pressure, with import pendency falling from 22,622 TEU on 4 October to 15,770 TEU by the morning of 6 October as operators accelerated evacuation. Import and export traffic share road, yard and handling capacity at several points in the system, so clearing inbound cargo creates more operating room for export boxes, empty containers and other terminal movements during a concentrated surge.
Gate flow has to be controlled against that yard capacity because restricting truck arrivals too aggressively can leave queues outside the terminal while admitting vehicles too quickly can move the congestion inside. Operators therefore have to regulate both sides of the gate so containers enter only as quickly as yard equipment and vessel loading plans can absorb them.
Container freight stations provide additional space beyond the terminal by allowing boxes to leave the yard while remaining within the wider port logistics system. Their contribution depends on road capacity and the receiving facility being able to accept and process the transferred containers without creating another queue farther along the chain.
Rail provides a further route for moving volume away from the gateway in larger blocks. APM Terminals Mumbai handled a 270 TEU double stack train in three hours and 17 minutes in September, showing how rail can evacuate a large number of containers without generating an equivalent number of truck movements. Its usefulness still depends on train paths, inland destinations and terminal planning aligning with the cargo available to move.
Rapid import evacuation likewise frees stacking positions and reduces competition for handling equipment at times when export cargo is arriving for a vessel. The two flows therefore affect one another even though the containers are travelling in opposite directions, because both draw on the same finite yard and transport capacity.
Vessel bunching can originate far outside the port because delays at previous calls, weather disruption or changes elsewhere in a carrier network can cause ships scheduled separately to reach the next gateway within the same operating window. Ports cannot eliminate that variability, so their resilience depends on the amount of spare capacity and coordination available across gates, yards, labour, equipment and inland transport when the schedule compresses unexpectedly.
JNPA returned to normal traffic as truck volumes, terminal inventory and freight station pendency moved back towards manageable levels together, allowing containers to circulate rather than accumulate at one point. The recovery therefore depended on several connected parts of the gateway improving at the same time rather than on clearing a single queue.
As throughput increases, that operating margin becomes more valuable because a similar burst of vessel arrivals will place greater absolute pressure on the same interfaces. Automation can shorten individual processing steps, but sustained recovery still depends on berth, yard, road, rail and freight station capacity remaining sufficiently aligned to move the surge through the gateway rather than shift it from one queue to another.
