How to use Container Intelligence on MarineTraffic

Container Intelligence gives you full visibility into container vessel operations — right down to terminal-level detail. It’s designed for logistics professionals who need real-time, accurate, and actionable insights to reduce delays, manage exceptions, and make smarter supply chain decisions.

Unlike traditional tools that depend on carrier inputs, Container Intelligence combines:

The result is precise, independent, and predictive insights — no reliance on carrier reporting.

1. Hidden delays

Port-level data often hides the real bottlenecks inside terminals.
Container Intelligence shows waiting times, berth stays, and queue lengths at the terminal level — so you can pinpoint where delays actually occur.

2. Limited visibility

Carrier-dependent systems often go dark.
MarineTraffic’s independent AIS-based system maintains visibility even when carriers don’t share updates.
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3. Unreliable ETAs

Instead of vague estimates, MarineTraffic uses AIS + machine learning to provide predictive schedules up to 6 weeks in advance — allowing you to plan proactively, not reactively.

For daily operations, you can use live data to prioritize dispatches, adjust pickup schedules, or avoid high-delay terminals. Over the long term, historical data can help optimize service selection, improve SLA compliance, and negotiate better terms with carriers.

Whether you’re a shipper, carrier, or terminal operator, these insights help reduce risks and improve planning.

In this article, we’ll guide you through how to make the most of this feature on the MarineTraffic platform.

Once selected, the Live Map displays circle icons representing specific ports and their terminals.

A Container Intelligence search bar also appears in the top-left corner of the screen.

You can locate ports or terminals in two ways:

Option 1 - Use the Search Bar

Type the name of a port or terminal in the Container Intelligence search bar.

Option 2 - Use the Live Map

Zoom in on the map to view terminals within a port.

Click on a terminal to focus on its data.

At the port level, the tool displays live data grouped in a table that lists all available terminals within the selected port. For each terminal, the table provides key information, including:

You can sort the table by Congestion Index and quickly identify the least congested terminals.

Additionally, you can create customized views by terminal, trade lane, carrier, performance level etc., allowing you to focus on specific congestion risks that are most relevant to your operations.

Once you’ve selected your terminal, you can start exploring the detailed congestion data. The information is displayed in the right-hand panel. The vessel table provides details on specific vessels heading to the selected terminal, including:

This combined view allows you to easily monitor both overall terminal congestion. For individual vessel movements see type in the search bar the vessel of your interest and see the description below.

You can track any vessel’s route, 6 weeks in the past and 6 weeks in the future, and get back the following details:

This visibility transforms how you manage risk, time, and customer expectations. Knowing exactly where and why delays happen lets you do something about them before they cost you.

When you click on a specific terminal, you’ll see detailed metrics appear on the right-hand side of the platform. Use the horizontal scroll bar to view all available metrics

Here’s what they mean:

Congestion

Congestion index measures real-time congestion by analyzing unserved demand. It takes into account the number and capacity of vessels at berth or waiting outside the port, along with their wait and stay times.

The score is normalized to enable easy comparison between terminals of different sizes:

Vessels

This section shows the number of vessels currently waiting at anchorage for the selected terminal.

Performance Index

The performance index compares a terminal’s operational performance over the past 7 days with its average over the past 6 months.

It factors in mean waiting time, mean stay time, and the proportion of vessels experiencing delays. Scores are normalized to allow fair comparisons:

Average Stay Time

This metric shows the average time vessels stayed at the terminal during the last seven days.

Average Waiting Time

This displays the average waiting time of vessels outside the terminal over the last seven days.

Waiting time definition and calculation

Waiting time is calculated using a combination of where the vessel is and how it behaves. We look at location, such as if the vessel is anchored near a port, but we also analyze its speed. If a vessel slows down to below 3 knots and stays at that low speed for an extended period, even if it’s not close to the berth, we recognize this as unusual behavior and flag it as waiting.

This lets us detect delays more accurately, even when vessels are waiting further out from the port or anchorage zone.

MarineTraffic Container Intelligence puts you in control of what happens at sea and at terminal. You get the visibility needed to make fast, confident calls when things shift. Whether it’s rerouting a shipment, pushing back on a carrier, or keeping customers in the loop, you’re not guessing, you’ve got the data.

All insights, real-time and predictive are available via web or API, so it fits into your world. Integrate directly into your TMS or dashboards and move from reactive to proactive.

Read a customer use case here.