U.S. port congestion data: the plain-English congestion board for importers.
The ship queue, the truck planning-time index and the monthly TEU volumes at the big US gateways, plus one rules-based import-friction read per complex, from the public record. Container (box) dwell, the number the trade means by dwell, has no structured national feed, but the Port of Los Angeles posts a daily import-container dwell-age report we collect, the weekly ship queue is the freshest congestion signal, and every dwell number is labeled with its exact clock. One brief a week. No forecasts, no routing calls.
Data through Oct 14, 2026 · updated Oct 15, 2026
Latest issue · Oct 13, 2026
Long Beach Outbound Rail Up 22%, Nine-Plus-Day Units Fall to 301
LA/Long Beach stays Flowing. Long Beach outbound rail rose to 3,047 units, up 22% week over week. Nine-plus-day pending units fell 60% to 301. US ships awaiting berth: 3, well below the five-year median.
Read the brief →Furthest above normal
The import-friction board →The data
Friction board
The hero: one plain read per port complex, flowing, some pressure, or congested, built by a fixed rule from where its ship queue, truck planning-time index and loaded-import TEU sit against their trailing-12-month normal.
1 pagePort complexes
The complex hub pages: the import-friction read at LA/Long Beach, NY/NJ and Savannah and the live metrics behind each, the ship queue, the truck planning-time index, and loaded-import TEU, in one place.
3 pagesShip queue
Container ships awaiting berth, the count of ships waiting offshore for a berth to open, weekly from MARAD and the Marine Exchange. This is a queue, not a dwell time, and it is the most current congestion signal on the site.
3 pagesAt anchor
Container ships at anchor off the East, Gulf and West Coast ports, weekly. The coast-wide anchorage count — related to but broader than a single complex's berth queue, and the widest early-warning lens the public record carries.
1 pageTruck index
The truck planning-time index around each complex, the FHWA measure of how much longer a drayage trip takes than free-flow. The truck-side congestion signal, monthly.
2 pagesBusiest ports
The tracked US container ports ranked by loaded-import volume, year to date and latest month, in TEU, with each port's month split into loaded imports, loaded exports and empties. One canonical ranking, updated in place: the import-demand read, not a congestion reading.
1 pageEmpty share
The empty-container share of monthly box volume at each tracked US port: repositioned empties as a share of loaded imports, loaded exports and empties. A trade-imbalance and equipment-flow read, never a congestion signal.
1 pageVessel dwell
The classic pandemic-era congestion number: the national average time a container ship sat at a US berth, AIS-derived, in hours. BTS reported it through mid-2023; this is a labeled historical page, never a current reading.
1 pageBox and rail dwell
The Port of Los Angeles daily import-container inventory, split by dwell age (0-4, 5-8 and 9-plus days), and the import boxes waiting for on-dock rail at Los Angeles and Long Beach side by side. Daily counts by age, never an average dwell time or vessel dwell.
2 pages