Port Botany

The below measures show the performance of various operational aspects within Port Botany as well as container throughput and vessel arrivals.

Port Botany is NSW's primary port for containers, bulk and liquid gas and is a major focus of supply chains in Greater Sydney.

The efficient operation of Port Botany requires strong co-ordination between port owners, stevedores, road and rail managers and service operators.

About the data 

Dataset name: Port Botany
Data owner: Cargo Management Coordination Centre (CMCC), Transport for NSW, Port Authority, NSW Ports and
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (provided by MariTrade)
Operator Coverage: Stevedores, NSW Ports
Date range: 2005 onwards
Frequency: Monthly

Data: To access the data, please click here

Description: The visualisations below display the following operational measures for Port Botany: 

  • Monthly total and export and import throughput volumes in TEUs
  • Monthly export and import empty container volumes in TEUs
  • Monthly vessel arrivals
  • MariTrade total import and export (in tonnes) volumes
  • MariTrade breakdown of import and export top ten commodities
  • Container turnaround time (average time to service a truck)
  • Carrier service level (truck on time running)
  • Stevedore service level (on time truck servicing)
  • Port Botany rail servicing rate (container lift rate for trains)
  • Monthly train arrivals into Botany Yard
  • Use of rail freight (number and proportion of TEUs transported by rail to and from Port Botany

Definitions

  • Monthly throughput volumes in TEUs data counts the total number of containers entering and exiting incoming and outgoing vessels. Monthly import and export throughput volumes in TEUs shows the breakdown in import and export TEUs
  • Monthly export and import empty containers in TEUs shows the movement of empty containers entering and exiting incoming and outgoing vessels
  • Monthly vessel arrivals shows the types of freight vessels using Port Botany, Sydney Harbour and Kurnell Port each month
  • MariTrade export and import totals in tonnes
  • MariTrade breakdown of import and export top ten commodities
    • MariTrade's database draws on Australia's international trade statistics to extract meaningful sea freight statistics for the use of those interested in international transport. The source data is collected by the Australian Customs Service (ACS) from importers and exporters, filtered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the raw data is then loaded each month into MariTrade's database.
  • Port Botany road and rail efficiency:
    • Container turnaround time (average time to service a truck) is a measure of the time (in minutes) a container is kept in a stevedore’s yard while it is processed for import and/or export. The calculation removes the wait time before a time slot is officially opened, for example: 
      • A carrier books a 9.00am slot, the stevedore opens the slot at 8.40am.  
      • The truck arrives at 8:45am and the stevedore services 2 containers for the truck by 9.30am.
      • The Truck Turnaround Time is recorded as 30 minutes. 
      • The CTT is recorded as 15 minutes, that is, 2 containers serviced from the start of the 9:00am time slot to 9.30am. 
    • Carrier service level (truck on time running) is a measure of how often trucks arrive within the booked time zone for a container with the correct equipment and all paper work in order. This allows stevedores to service a consistent number of trucks each hour, which improves efficiency. This is measured on a container basis and not a truck basis.
    • Stevedore service level (on time truck servicing) is a measure of how often a stevedore is able to service a truck within the legislated allowable time, currently 45 minutes for the first container and an additional 20 minutes for each subsequent container for that truck. This improves the productivity and reliability of the carrier’s operations.  This is measured on a container basis and not a truck basis. 
    • Port Botany rail servicing rate (container lift rate for trains) is a measure of the number of container lifts (in and out) completed within an hour by the stevedores. It indicates how quickly a train can be stripped and back-loaded depending on its size and load, and how efficiently fork lift operations are being performed. To enable the calculation of this measure: 
      • DP World and Patrick provide details of actual total monthly work time. 
      • Hutchison’s total monthly work time must be determined by the average dwell time minus average shunt time, multiplied by monthly train arrivals.
      • Adding all 3 stevedores’ total monthly lifts and dividing this by their total monthly work time gives average stevedore servicing rate.
  • Number of train arrivals at Botany Yard shows the number of train arrivals into Port Botany Yard on a monthly basis.
  • Use of rail freight shows the number and proportion of total twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) transported by rail to and from Port Botany.

Further definitions

  • The data includes freight at Port Botany, Kurnell Port and Sydney Harbour.
  • A stevedore is an infrastructure operator and service provider that loads and unloads cargo from ship to connect with land transport.
  • TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit) is the unit of the capacity of a container ship, a container terminal and the statistics of the container transit in a port.

Limitations

  • Before using information shown in, throughput volumes in TEUs at Port Botany, users should refer to the relevant NSW Ports website for full line capability and operation condition details. NSW Ports perform reconciliation of the information from the shipping companies and Stevedores and publish trade reports two months after the fact. Therefore, the volumes provided by NSW Ports at the beginning of the following month is a best approximate.
  • Use of Rail Freight
  • All containers that pass in or out of the gates at Port Botany are counted. This:
    • Excludes non-containerised freight
    • May involve some double counting if containers come into Port Botany and then straight back out
    • Measure does not include information on containers being moved within the port precinct by truck or rail
    • Measure does not include how far freight is being transported by rail.
    • Measure does not include containers transported predominantly on rail with 'last mile' delivered by road. 
  • MariTrade's databases are based on imports and exports gathered by Customs and may differ from those published by NSW Ports on their online trade reports.
  • Data is reported by MariTrade to Transport for NSW and will be two months behind due to volume of data collection and processing by ABS.