Empty container repositioning: the $20B inefficiency

An imbalance built into trade

Goods do not flow evenly. Import-heavy regions pile up empty containers; export-heavy regions run short. Closing that gap — repositioning empties — costs the industry an estimated twenty billion dollars a year in moves that carry nothing but air.

The local version of a global problem

The same imbalance plays out city by city, depot by depot, every single day. One yard is overflowing with empties while another two suburbs away is turning trucks away. Each correction is a paid empty move.

Swapping as the release valve

PortChief matches empties to the carriers and depots that actually need them before anyone dispatches a one-way empty run. Repositioning still happens — but it happens loaded, shared, and far less often.