Container Atlas inside SONAR highlights lead times, transit times, and delays
When the Trump Administration delayed the most onerous tariffs on imports from China for 90 days, the immediate expectation was that imports would soon surge. Recent anecdotes suggest that is still the expectation with the surge hitting US shores in ‘late June or early July.’ Class I railroad BNSF and intermodal chassis provider Trac Intermodal have made comments to that effect and, in turn, are relocating equipment to port cities.
While those comments provide a general expectation, lead times vary widely by routing, delays can arise, and the Port of Singapore’s current congestion provides another variable. Container Atlas provides insight into overall import lead times by providing:
- Booking lead time (average number of days between the date bookings were submitted to the ocean carrier and the date of departure)
- Transit time (average number of days between a vessel’s departure date and its arrival date)
- Delay days (average days between published and actual transit times)
Taken together, the vessel information gives carriers a sense of when they need to have resources available at the ports, and it gives shippers an idea of when their goods will hit US shores. Ocean transit and lead times can be the difference between shippers utilizing expedited trucking or rail intermodal once goods are taken off vessels.
Consider the difference in all-time time between goods moving from China to the US West and East coasts.
Shanghai to the Port of Los Angeles
- Booking lead time: 13 days
- Transit time: 15 days
- Delay days: 1 day
Total time from booking to hitting destination port: 29 days
Taken together, that suggests about 29 days from the time the shipment is booked in Shanghai to arrival at the port of LA, on average. The Administration announced the 90-day pause on the most onerous Chinese tariffs on May 12th. That suggests the impact of the V-shaped recovery in orders could have started hitting the Port of LA on June 7th. That analysis doesn’t take into account the time it takes for containers to be offloaded from vessels, which adds additional time, but a recovery should start to take place in the coming days.
Shanghai to Savannah
- Booking lead time: 17 days
- Transit time: 33 days
- Delay days: 5 days (has been as high as 14 this year)
Total time from booking to hitting destination port: 55 days
For Shanghai to Savannah, 55 days after May 12th is July 3rd. Add in a few more days that containers will be at the port and the 4th of July holiday, and an uptick in freight demand should be expected in the second or third week of July.
The biggest difference in transit time from China to the US East and West costs is, of course, the ocean sailing time. At 15 and 33 days for China to LA and Savannah, respectively, the SONAR data is not too different from the rule of thumb that China to the West Coast takes two weeks and China to the East Coast takes four. But, booking lead times and delays days should also be considered, which Container Atlas provides clarity on.
For a demonstration of SONAR intermodal volume and pricing data, and for how the data compares to truckload and ocean data, request a demo here.
