Posted on July 2, 2025
Sea-Intelligence ranked 202 top deep-sea ports for schedule reliability, finding smaller Latin American ports outperformed major global hubs like Shanghai.
Sea-Intelligence has analysed schedule reliability across the 202 deep-sea ports with the highest number of container vessel calls, developing a “power ranking” based on nearly 14 years of data.
“While a simple average of monthly schedule reliability over 14 years is one method, it gives equal weight to performance in 2012 and 2025,” Sea-Intelligence noted. “In our experience, recent data is a better indicator of future performance. To reflect this, we assigned greater weight to 2025 figures and progressively less to earlier years.”
Sea-Intelligence also factored in port call volumes, arguing that higher call frequency increases the potential for disruption, making sustained reliability more difficult to achieve. The resulting ranking (see Figure 1 below) incorporates both recency and volume considerations. Santa Marta, Colombia, emerged as the most reliable deep-sea port, with a schedule reliability of 94.5%.
Regionally, 12 of the top 20 ports are located in Central and South America, while six are in Europe. Notably, none are in Asia. Among the 20 most-called ports globally, the average ranking was just 124th out of 202, with an average schedule reliability of 60.3%. The highest-ranked Asian port was 23rd, while the top North American port placed 51st. Shanghai ranked 169th, Singapore 145th, Los Angeles 124th, Long Beach 155th, and Rotterdam 106th. Only Tanjung Pelepas, ranked 46th, broke into the top 60 among the 20 most-called ports.
“This highlights that the most globally connected ports in deep-sea trades are often among the least reliable,” Sea-Intelligence concluded. “While schedule reliability is primarily determined by vessel operations rather than port performance alone, it remains a key performance indicator for ports.”
Credit: Sea-Intelligence
