The Port of Vancouver has ranked second to last in a global ranking of hundreds of container ports, after some cargo ships waited weeks to unload their cargo last year.
Established by the World Bank and S&P Global Market Intelligence, the Container Ports Performance Index ranks Vancouver at 347e place out of 348 – and last in terms of ports of similar size to its own.
The study uses ship waiting times as an indicator of overall efficiency.
Strong consumer demand has led to increased imports at North American west coast ports in 2021 and 2022, causing congestion that has eased since December, the authority’s spokesperson said. Vancouver-Fraser port, Alex Munro.
In fact, 8 of the 14 lowest-ranked container ports are in North America, including Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Los Angeles, Long Beach, and last place Savannah, Georgia.
Munro cited other challenges, including “supply chain congestion” in Ontario and Quebec, as well as an “overload” from flooding in British Columbia in late 2021, which cut Vancouver off from the country’s transportation network for eight days.
“The past few years have reinforced the need for continued investment in port infrastructure and technology to meet growing Canadian trade and maintain efficient supply chains,” Munro said in an email. .
In 2022, container volumes at the Port of Vancouver were down 4% from the previous year due to lower consumer demand and excess inventory, but last year’s total still was the third highest on record.
Due to the saturation of container parks and the lack of storage space in distribution centers, freighters remained at anchor for around 10 days on average in the first half of 2022 – more than twice as long as the previous year – before docking at the country’s largest port.
Despite the global easing of pandemic-related logistical problems, the ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert slipped in the rankings last year. The Port of Vancouver, which outperformed Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2021, ranked below them last year. The Port of Prince Rupert, which was at 32e rank from the bottom, slipped to seventh place from the bottom.
“The improvement in 2022 has had a positive impact on the performance and ranking of some ports; when the problem was systemic, not location-specific, the inherent inefficiency remained,” the report said.