Location, depth and frequency
Hubs sit close to the main shipping lanes, such as the Strait of Malacca or the Strait of Gibraltar, so ships can call without a long detour. They need deep water, long quays, big yards and many weekly services, so that containers arriving on one ship find an onward sailing quickly. Much of their volume never crosses the gate, because it arrives and leaves by sea.
Hub dwell between two vessels
At a hub, the time between discharge and the onward load is the hub dwell for that box. A few days is common when sailings line up well, and it stretches when the onward vessel is late, full or skips a week. Long hub dwell is often the first sign that a destination ETA is about to move. Note the onward vessel's name once it is loaded.
When a hub backs up
Hubs feel disruption early because they collect cargo from many services at once. When ships arrive off schedule, yards fill with boxes waiting for connections, and terminals may slow intake or carriers may shift some calls to other hubs. Shipments routed through a backed-up hub can lose a week or more even though nothing went wrong at origin or destination.
Example
A container from Durban bound for Valencia may change ships at Tanger Med, one of the hubs near the Strait of Gibraltar along with Algeciras.
Track a container
Save the reference now and create your account; tracking starts once your 30-day trial is active.
Questions
What does Transshipment Hub mean?
A transshipment hub is a port where a large share of containers move from one ship to another instead of entering or leaving the country. Hubs link feeder networks to long-haul services and connect long-haul routes with each other.
Which ports are major transshipment hubs?
Well-known examples include Singapore, Tanjung Pelepas, Colombo, Algeciras, Tanger Med and Kingston. Which hub a container uses depends on the carrier, its alliance partners and the lane.
Can the carrier change the hub on my booking?
Yes. Carriers can reroute a container through a different hub when services change or a hub is congested, and bill of lading terms usually allow it. The new routing shows up as different hub events in tracking.