b'2American Journal ofTransportation ajot.comAJOTs Top 100 Container Ports TOP 100 CONTAINER PORTS 2024Ports in the age of disruptionsIn 2023 disruptions to the worlds great sea lanes andaslowdownindemandfollowingthepost-COVID boom throttled TEU throughput at many ports around the world.2024, however, looks to be a stronger year for container ports.By George Lauriat, AJOTP orts ands hiPs slippedtothenumberten Ultimately any catalogueslotat14.34millionTEUs of ports is symbiotically alsoandisdestinedtofalleven about ships, or in this specificfurther in the coming decades. case - container ships. AfterHongKong,whichfora all, a port is measured by thetimewastheworldslargest ships that call and the freightcontainer port, is a victim of thatshauled.Andintheits own geography and global case of both container shipseconomics.ChinasPearl andportsthatismeasuredRiverportslikeShenzhen byTwenty-FootEquivalentatnumberfourwith29.88 Unitsbetterknowninthemillion TEUs or Guangzhou at industry as TEUs.number six with 25.41 million According to Alphaliner,TEUs,havecutintoHong oneofthemostrespected(DISRUPTIONScontinued chroniclersofcontainershipon page 6)statistics,asofthefirst week of June 2024, there are 6,166containershipsactive withacarryingcapacityof 29,487,484TEUs.Mostof thisvolumeisdeployedon threemajorregionaltrade routes,theTrans-Atlantic with 159,315 TEUs, the Far East-to-Europe with 458,864 TEUs, and the largest, Trans-Pacific with 517,472 TEUs. Unsurprisingly,mostof AJOTsTop100Container Ports A-Z serve one or more ofthesethreegreatflows offreight.Andequally unsurprisingly, twelve of the top fifteen container ports lie in Asia with China being the home to eight of these ports, including the worlds largest, Shanghai(seeAJOTs10 MillionClubchartonpage 10 for more details). In 2023 Shanghai handled nearly 49.2 million TEUs for the fifth straight year and the resultwasafull10million plus TEUs over Singapore at 39 million TEUs and roughly 14millionTEUsmorethan the neighboring Chinese port of Ningbo-Zhoushan at 35.3 million. Buttherearechangesin thisyearsAJOTsTop100 ContainerPortsA-Zchart reflectingthefactthatthe industry, and indeed the world, liveinanageofdisruption. Someofthesedisruptions, liketheHouthisactionsin theRedSeachokepoint,theIncreasing VelocityRussia-Ukraine war, low-water problemswiththePanama Canalortheongoingtrade-war between the United States andChinahavehadmassiveOur investments in rail will move cargo through the Port of Long Beach more efficiently impactsoncontainertradeand with less environmental impact than ever before. Were working to speed cargo to routes while other disruptions likethecontainershipDalismarket and lower the cost of doing business.collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore have beenmorelocalized.Andin afewcasesthedisruption ismoreevolutionarythan immediate.Probably the most obvious example of the evolutionary shiftisHongKong,which'