The import-friction board

This board gives each major port complex one plain label, flowing, some pressure, or congested, built by a fixed rule. For each complex we take up to three components, the ship queue where one is published, the truck planning-time index, and loaded-import TEU, and compare each to its own trailing-12-month median. A component more than 15 percent above its normal is elevated. Zero elevated components reads flowing, one reads some pressure, two or more reads congested. The full rule is on the methodology page. Not every complex publishes every component: LA/Long Beach has all three, NY/NJ has the truck index and loaded imports but no public ship queue, and Savannah has a ship queue and loaded imports but no truck index. An n/a here is a gap in what the source publishes, not a gap in the site, and the read is judged only on the components that report. Only the ship queue is a live weekly reading; the truck index and loaded imports are monthly and land about two months after the month they cover, so each cell is dated to its own reading and the freshest reading is the weekly ship queue. It describes the current numbers; it does not predict the next move.