Indian Port congestion watch from 6-12 September 2026

Port congestion is often reported using different numbers. One source may show a vessel waiting for two days, another may show four days of port delay, while a terminal schedule may show the vessel as “on time”.

For LogisticsWall’s India Port Congestion Watch, we are trying to keep the measurement simple: how much time does a vessel actually spend waiting from arrival at the port until it gets a berth?

How are we calculating Median Waiting Time?

Our basic measurement is:

Vessel Waiting Time = Actual Berthing Time – Vessel Arrival Time

The arrival point is taken when the vessel reaches the port/anchorage or enters the port waiting area and is ready to wait for berth allocation.

The clock stops when the vessel is actually berthed.

For example:

• Vessel arrives: 10 September, 06:00

• Vessel gets berth: 12 September, 18:00

• Waiting time = 60 hours / 2.5 days

We collect the waiting times of vessels handled during the observation period and arrange them from lowest to highest.

The median is the middle value.

If 9 vessels have waiting times of:

0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 4.0 days

the median is the fifth value — 0.7 days.

This is different from an average. A few vessels waiting 5–10 days will not distort the median in the same way they would distort an average.

Portcast uses the same basic concept for its P50/median measure and defines vessel waiting as the time from anchorage until successful berthing. Its methodology uses AIS signals, port-call information and other operational data.

How LogisticsWall establishes the number

For the LogisticsWall weekly watch, we cross-check several sources rather than taking a single published congestion number.

We look at:

1. Vessel arrival/anchorage movement
AIS and port-call information are used to establish when the vessel reaches the waiting area.

2. Actual berth allocation
Port authority and terminal berth reports are checked to identify when the vessel actually comes alongside.

3. Vessel schedules
Terminal and port schedules are compared with the actual movement of the vessel.

4. Shipping-line operational advisories
These help identify whether a delay is caused by berth congestion, yard density, equipment problems, weather or another operational disruption.

5. Outlier vessels
Median waiting alone is not enough. A port can show a low median while several vessels are waiting much longer. Therefore, we also look for these long-tail delays.

This is important because port traffic and port congestion are not the same thing. A busy port can move vessels efficiently, while a smaller number of vessels can face severe delays because of berth bunching or equipment problems.

India — current picture

For the latest available weekly Portcast dataset covering 6–12 September 2026, the reported median waiting times were:

These numbers should be read as median vessel waiting, not total port turnaround time.

There is also evidence that conditions can change faster than a weekly median shows. Hapag-Lloyd's Week 38 operational update, for example, reported current delays of 24–36 hours at Mundra and 12–24 hours at Nhava Sheva, along with elevated yard densities.

Kolkata needs a different reading

Kolkata is particularly important when interpreting congestion data.

It is a riverine port, unlike the deep-water coastal container gateways such as Mundra or JNPA. Vessel movement is therefore influenced by the river approach, navigation and operational windows, while equipment availability can also have a direct impact on vessel handling.

The published median of 0.18 days for 6–12 September should therefore not be interpreted as saying every vessel at Kolkata is getting a berth within a few hours. Portcast itself notes that median waiting can hide long-tail delays affecting a smaller number of vessels.

There are also current infrastructure-maintenance signals. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port has a September 2026 tender for replacement of crane rail tracks for rail-mounted quay cranes at Haldia Berths 11 and 12.

From our operational observations and vessel-level market checks, Kolkata/Haldia can see much longer individual vessel waits — in some cases more than four days — particularly when berth availability, river conditions or crane/equipment availability coincide.

That is why LogisticsWall will not use a four-day operational observation and call it the “median”. Instead, we will separately identify long-wait vessels and operational delays alongside the statistical median.

The objective of the LogisticsWall index

The purpose of this weekly watch is not simply to say whether a port is “congested” or “not congested”.

We want to answer three practical questions:

How long are most vessels waiting?
→ Median waiting time.

Are some vessels facing unusually long delays?
→ Long-tail / maximum waiting observations.

Why are vessels waiting?
→ Berth availability, yard conditions, equipment, weather, river/navigation restrictions, vessel bunching or other operational factors.

This gives a more useful picture for exporters, importers, shipping lines, freight forwarders and NVOCCs planning cargo through Indian ports.

LogisticsWall will continue tracking these numbers week by week rather than relying on a single congestion figure.