Empty containers: the industry's real shortage is usable data

Repositioning empty containers now accounts for 30% of all container shipping work measured in TEU-miles, up from 24% before the 2020 pandemic — and the industry is paying for it through the nose. That figure, calculated this year by Sea-Intelligence, sits at the heart of an argument making the rounds among equipment planners: the empty container problem isn't a shortage of boxes. It's a shortage of joined-up data.

The context is brutal. Container shipping has just lived through its third consecutive year of a peak season that arrived early and left just as fast. Shippers rushed cargo out ahead of the July 1 bunker adjustment factor reset, itself a product of fuel costs pushed up by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Red Sea avoidance has cut effective fleet capacity by around 12%, with slow steaming absorbing another 2%, according to MPC Container Ships chief executive Constantin Baack.

Idle capacity opened 2026 at just 0.6% of the global fleet. When ships run that close to full, there's no cushion for equipment either. A terminal short on boxes during a front-loading rush can sit on a surplus weeks later, paying storage and demurrage on boxes nobody wants to move.

What does the data gap actually cost?

Plenty. The number of empty containers shipped has grown 65% since early 2019, while full containers grew just 17%. Each empty leg takes a vessel slot and a crane lift, often with a truck or train move at either end — fuel burned, nothing earned.

In June, Hapag-Lloyd told customers operational disruptions were costing $50 million to $60 million a week, and pointed to storage and inland transport as part of that bill. Sometimes a carrier leases boxes at a premium at one port while, three time zones away, a terminal pays to store idle ones — occasionally on the same trade lane, run by the same planning team, staring at data that was never merged.

The fix, argued by Transmetrics CEO Asparuh Koev in Container News, doesn't require new ships or containers. It requires a twelve- to sixteen-week forecast that lets planners reposition boxes before shortages hit, and weigh the cost of storing a container against moving it across the network.

The gap shows up in four places: sustainability, standardization, safety and security.

Can standards catch up?

Slowly. Containers carry a universal identity via the BIC owner code register, published continuously since 1970, and the Digital Container Shipping Association — whose members cover about 75% of global container trade — has published standards for bookings and track and trace. But implementation varied so widely that, since mid-2025, the DCSA only lists rollouts that pass its conformance testing.

Regulation is helping. Since January 1, 2026, SOLAS amendments require every container lost or drifting at sea to be reported, and flag states must send annual loss figures to the IMO — replacing voluntary surveys that the World Shipping Council estimates recorded 1,478 containers lost in 2025.

The everyday irritation is smaller: two terminals log a gate-out differently, a partner's EDI codes a 40-foot high cube one way and the depot another, and the numbers stop adding up.

What about unsafe and criminal boxes?

Under the Convention for Safe Containers, every box needs scheduled or continuous examination, and unsafe units must leave service. Yet inspection and repair records sit in maintenance systems planners never open — which is how a container weeks from its exam date ends up on a long loop. The IPPC's recommendation on the sea container pathway also flags incomplete cleaning as a main source of pest contamination.

Security is grimmer. Last year the World Customs Organization analyzed more than 2,600 drug seizures and found 68% involved someone inside the maritime cargo supply chain; containers accounted for 85% of seizure events. Gangs increasingly hide smaller loads inside the structure of reefer containers and collect them at unsecured empty yards, often with insider help. A network that forecasts where every box should be gets an exception flag when one sits somewhere no booking explains.

What changes next?

The operators best placed for the next swing are those using data they already hold. With Veson Nautical putting the orderbook at close to 40% of the existing fleet and capacity growth outpacing demand through decade's end, the next downturn will hit a network with almost no idle capacity to absorb it. The boxes are there. The information, mostly, already is too — it just lives in the wrong silos.