Introduction

Have you ever wondered how Australia’s container ports are performing? Explore how many containers are flowing through Australia’s five major container ports, how quickly they can be loaded and unloaded, and what modes they are leaving by.  

Australia’s container ports are critical infrastructure. To measure port performance, it is important to understand how many containers our ports handle (throughput), how quickly containers can be loaded and unloaded (ship rate) and how many containers leave the port via road and rail (landside). 

Date range: 1/1/2011 - 30/6/2022

About the data

This interactive provides insights into imports and exports through Australia’s five major container ports – the Port of Brisbane, Port Botany, Port of Melbourne, Port Adelaide (Outer Harbour) and the Port of Fremantle (Inner Harbour). 

Container port throughput and performance data is taken from BITRE’s Waterline series, which collects data from port operators, stevedores and port authorities bi-annually. Waterline’s strengths lie in its historical time series and benchmarking over time data. Due to variation in sources and definitions, caution is advised when comparing certain measures (e.g. land and wharf-side twenty-foot equivalent units). 

For more information on the underlying dataset, or to access the data, please refer to the BITRE Waterline series.

Limitations

  1. Waterline data has been collected since 1994, however, data fields have changed over time. As such, only data from 2011 onwards has been visualised to ensure a consistent time series. 

  2. The data is aggregated and presented for each port quarterly to ensure individual container movements can't be isolated. 

  3. Container counts are aggregated from different points in the supply chain and sourced from different data providers with differing operational requirements. As such, aggregate container counts vary between indicators. 

  4. Road throughput refers to containers booked through the Vehicle Booking System or Truck Appointment System. Containers not captured in this measure are not included in the road throughput. 

Feedback

Please Contact the NFDH team if you have any questions or suggestions for improving this interactive. All feedback is appreciated.