Cargo traffic at major retail container ports will likely remain below last year’s levels through this summer and early fall, but month-to-month numbers are climbing and ports should see a return to year-over-year growth by Halloween, according to the monthly Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Global Insight.


“The numbers are still below last year but they are steadily climbing,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. “That’s in line with forecasts that the economy could begin its slow recovery this fall and reflects retailers’ sales expectations for the holiday season.”


U.S. ports surveyed handled 1.26 million Twenty-Foot-Equivalent Units (TEU) of container traffic in April, the most recent month for which actual numbers are available. That’s up 8.9 percent from March – which registered the lowest volume in two years – but down 4.7 percent from April 2007. One TEU is one 20-foot container or its equivalent.


May was estimated at 1.3 million TEU, down 5.7 percent from a year ago, and June is forecast at 1.34 million TEU, down 8.1 percent. July is forecast at 1.4 million TEU, down 2.8 percent; August at 1.46 million TEU, down 0.3 percent; and September at 1.43 million TEU, down 3.1 percent. October is forecast at 1.48 million TEU, a 2.7 percent increase that would represent the first year-to-year rise since July 2007, when 1.44 million TEU were handled compared with 1.4 million in July 2006.


Meanwhile, all U.S. ports covered by Port Tracker – Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Hampton Roads, Charleston and Savannah on the East Coast, and Houston on the Gulf Coast – are rated “low” for congestion, the same as last month.


“The covered ports are operating without congestion from the harbor to the gate,” Global Insight Economist Paul Bingham said.