What does a terminal productivity report measure?
A terminal productivity report puts the month's quay, gate, yard and equipment figures on one page and compares each with a target. It answers the questions a terminal manager, a port authority or a shipping line asks: how fast did the cranes work, how long did ships stay at the berth, how long did trucks spend in the terminal, how full was the yard and how much of the time was the equipment ready to work.
The workbook takes raw rows, one per vessel call, one per day at the gate and in the yard, one per machine and month, and works out ten KPIs for the month you choose, with a status against your targets and a 12-month trend.
Which KPIs are in the report?
| KPI | How it is calculated | Source of the definition |
|---|---|---|
| Gross crane rate | Moves ÷ gross crane hours | TIC 4.0 Productivity Gross |
| Net crane rate | Moves ÷ (gross crane hours − delay hours) | Crane productivity per crane-hour, UNCTAD 2012 |
| Berth productivity | Moves ÷ hours at berth | Ship productivity per hour at berth, UNCTAD 2012 |
| Hours at berth per call | Unberthed − berthed, averaged over calls | Time at berth, the core of the World Bank CPPI |
| Berth occupancy | Hours at berth ÷ (berths × hours in the month) | UNCTAD 2012 |
| Truck turnaround | Visit-weighted average of daily turnaround | TIC 4.0 Truck Turnaround Time |
| Visits over the target time | Visits over target ÷ visits | Your own target |
| Yard utilization | Containers on hand ÷ storage capacity | UNCTAD 2012 |
| Equipment availability | (Possible − breakdown hours) ÷ possible hours | UNCTAD 2012 |
| Idle share of engine hours | Idle hours ÷ engine hours | Hour meters and the tracking system's idle report |
Why measure these every month?
- Ships compare ports by time: the World Bank's Container Port Performance Index ranks ports by the time vessels need for their calls; in the 2024 edition, reported in September 2025, Hamad Port was first in the Gulf and 11th of 403 ports.
- Gates and yard limit the quay: a full yard or a slow gate shows up later as slower cranes and longer berth stays.
- Equipment hours drive cost: breakdown hours cut availability, and idle engine hours burn fuel and bring services forward.
How to fill in the workbook
- Settings: pick the month, enter the berths in service, your targets and whether higher or lower is better for each KPI.
- Vessel calls: one row per call with berthed, first lift, last lift and unberthed times, cranes, moves, gross crane hours and delay hours, from the vessel report or your terminal operating system.
- Gate and Yard: one row per day with truck visits, average turnaround, visits over target, containers on hand and capacity.
- Equipment: one row per machine and month with possible, breakdown, engine and idle hours.
- Dashboard: read each KPI with its target and status, and the 12-month trend with a chart.
Worked example: October in the sample data
- 23 vessel calls with 40,450 moves give a gross crane rate of 27.3 moves an hour against a 25 example target: On target.
- Ships stayed 28.9 hours at the berth on average against a 24-hour example target: Off target, which points to the time between berthing and the first lift and after the last lift.
- 30,159 truck visits averaged 64 minutes of turnaround against 60: Close, inside the 10% band.
- Equipment was available 94% of possible hours, and 36% of engine hours were idle.
The sample rows and targets are examples to show how the workbook works, not data of any terminal.
Common mistakes in terminal KPIs
- Mixing gross and net hours. A crane rate means little without saying which hours it divides by.
- Averaging averages. The workbook weights turnaround by visits and crane rates by hours, not by days or calls.
- Counting hatch covers as moves in one month and not the next. Keep one rule for what a move is.
- Targets nobody agreed. Set targets with the shipping lines, the port authority and your own operations team.
What the template does not cover
The workbook calculates from the rows you enter; it does not connect to a terminal operating system, crane systems or the port authority. It reports one terminal; copy it per terminal. The 70% berth occupancy and 65% yard utilization targets are the limits used in the Tanzania Ports Authority example presented at UNCTAD in 2012, given as examples only. All sample rows are examples.
Sources
- TIC 4.0, Productivity Gross KPI definition, version 20240412. Source: TIC 4.0.
- TIC 4.0, Truck Turnaround Time KPI definition, page updated 4 June 2024. Source: TIC 4.0.
- H. Mwasenga, Tanzania Ports Authority, Port Performance Indicators: A case of Dar es Salaam port, UNCTAD Ad Hoc Expert Meeting on Assessing Port Performance, 12 December 2012. Source: UNCTAD.
- Gulf Times, 25 September 2025: Hamad Port first in the Gulf and 11th globally in the World Bank and S&P Global Container Port Performance Index 2024. Source: Gulf Times. Last reviewed 21 October 2026.