Use of Rail Freight at Port Botany

This measure shows the number and proportion of total twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) transported by rail to and from Port Botany.

A Strategic Target of the NSW Freight and Ports Plan 2018-2023 is to increase the share of rail freight at Port Botany to 28% or 930,000 TEU by 2021 (against a 2016 baseline of 17% or 388,552). 

Transporting freight on the rail network significantly improves efficiency, congestion and sustainability, especially around major trade gateways. This is important as the volume of freight moved through NSW ports will grow in the future. 

Other measures of rail freight use including the transport of bulk freight to other ports in NSW are currently under development 
 

About the data

Dataset name: Use of Rail Freight
Data owner: Cargo Movement Coordination Centre, Transport for NSW
Coverage: Port Botany
Date range: 2016 onwards 
Frequency: Monthly 

Description: This visualisation displays the number and percentage of total containers that leave or arrive at Port Botany on rail. 

This measure is calculated by the total monthly Rail TEUs moved by the three stevedores in Port Botany divided by Port Botany total monthly trade volume in TEUs.

Definitions
  • 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 which describe the movement of containers.
Limitations
  • Data is reported by stevedores to Transport for NSW
  • 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.