Danish container shipping company Maersk has published an update about the ongoing situation in Canada regarding significant congestion at terminals and inland ramps.
Maersk has noted that rail and truck sectors have been impacted.
Rail
According to Maersk's customer advisory on 8 July, due to congestion in Toronto, Canadian National Railway (CN) is metering the number of Toronto-bound releases from Prince Rupert to ensure they do not gridlock its facilities. Regarding the operations of Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), Toronto-bound traffic is no longer being metered. However, dwells may remain high due to yard capacity.
Furthermore, the Centerm terminal in Vancouver reported on 8 July that yard utilisation was 113%, which causes additional delays for all volumes on terminal due to containers being buried. The company is working with the terminal to load the longest dwelling containers daily.
Below is a list per CP destination denoting dwell times with container counts in parentheses:
- CP Vaughn: 0-10 days (416), 11-20 days (18), 21-30 days (34), 30+ days (26)
- CP Montreal: 0-10 days (132), 11-20 days (4), 21-30 days (66), 30+ days (20)
- CP Detroit: 0-10 days (89), 11-20 days (17), 21-30 days (8), 30+ days (1)
- CP Bensenville: 0-10 days (59), 11-20 days (16), 30+ days (8)
- CP Edmonton: 0-10 days (18), 30+ days (11)
- CP Minneapolis: 0-10 days (26), 11-20 days (2), 21-30 days (7)
Prince Rupert said that yard utilisation was also high. To combat the Toronto congestion on terminal and ensure vessels are not delayed, operations are utilising an off-site yard near the terminal for all new incoming Toronto containers, according to a statement. As space clears on dock they will load to the rail.
Below is a list per CN destination denoting dwell times with container counts in parentheses:
- CN Brampton: 0-10 days (2), 11-20 days (172), 21-30 days (2), 30+ days (7)
- CN Montreal: 11-20 days (16)
- CN Memphis: 11-20 days (4)
Truck
Meanwhile, truck wait times at both the CN and CP rails in Toronto are in a better situation in the past couple weeks, according to Maersk's advisory.
The Danish carrier said that volume continues to arrive in Toronto at high levels causing final mile deliveries across the board to be delayed. Maersk said it is working with its truck vendors to obtain additional capacity to support the volume, while containers are being targeted based on longest dwell.
- CN Toronto Dwell: 12 days
- CP Toronto Dwell: 13 days
Below are the truck wait times at the CN ramps in Toronto
- Brampton CCT- less than 60-minutes
- Malport CCT- less than 60-minutes
- MISC CCT- less than 30-minutes
