Yard Density Above 100% in Asia: Ports Told to Build In Spare Capacity

Yard density at Tokyo's AOM terminal has hit 113%, up from 96%, with Yokohama above 100% and Busan's BNCT around 95% overall — laden density near 100% — according to daily terminal-utilisation data reported by Kuehne+Nagel. Rotterdam's ECT is not far behind, at 94% yard occupancy.

Those numbers explain why a daily review of container terminal utilisation has become a must-read for supply chain planners trying to work out where boxes will be delayed, and for how long. It remains an art rather than a science. But it signals a genuine paradigm shift: the industry now lives in an era where waves of mega-congestion ripple across the port and shipping system.

What do the numbers actually mean?

Terminal occupancy measures how many containers are sitting in a yard awaiting either a truck or a vessel loading. Across major gateways, those levels sit far above what the facilities were designed to handle.

Drewry's recent analysis of port congestion makes the stakes bluntly clear. The difference between clearing a terminal running at 85%-plus utilisation and one at 70% is massive: a one-day closure at the 70% terminal can be cleared in two days. At the 85%-plus terminal, the same closure takes a week. And if multiple disruptions stack up, there is very little chance the high-utilisation terminal ever clears completely.

The past two months proved the point. Successive typhoons hit key Asian loading ports, delaying vessel departures. The knock-on effect was congestion elsewhere in the world — because those downstream ports were themselves operating at 85%-plus utilisation, with no slack to absorb diverted or delayed cargo.

Why are terminals running so full?

Some of this sits beyond terminal operators' control. They have no say over when vessels arrive, or how badly delayed those vessels were at the previous port. Wars, weather and other disruptive events are, as the saying goes, in the hands of the gods.

But terminal operators could be far better prepared when congestion hits. The problem is structural: they have no commercial incentive to hold spare capacity. As Drewry's Eleanor Hadland succinctly put it: "No terminal manager gets rewarded for having empty space."

The opposite is true. Terminal operators — especially those with carriers as sister companies — have enjoyed a bumper 2026, as recent third-quarter results demonstrated. The commercial consequences flow downhill from there: cargo owners, freight forwarders and, ultimately, everyday consumers face increased costs as supply chains fracture in front of their eyes.

What's the fix?

The proposed remedy targets port authorities, who mostly own the terminals on a landlord basis and therefore set the concession terms. The argument, advanced by The Loadstar, is that authorities could future-proof their container terminals by stipulating in concession contracts that a certain amount of nominal terminal capacity must remain unused, except when disruptions demand it.

The logic works in round numbers. A port needs a further 2m teu of container capacity? Stipulate that the operator builds a terminal with a nominal 2.5m teu capacity, giving the container supply chain into the port's hinterland the buffer that this year has so clearly shown is needed.

For shippers and forwarders, the immediate read is unchanged: watch the daily yard-density figures, because dwell times at Tokyo, Yokohama, Busan and Rotterdam will stay elevated while utilisation runs above design limits. Longer term, whether the buffer-capacity idea gains traction depends on whether port authorities are willing to trade a slice of headline throughput for resilience — a conversation that will only intensify if the typhoon-driven congestion waves of the past two months repeat into next year's contracting rounds.