A Closer Look at South Africa’s Ports: Three New Data sets on EasyData

What is moving through South Africa’s ports, and how is that changing? Three new EasyData datasets bring cargo handling, vessel arrivals and container throughput together, offering useful perspectives on maritime trade and logistics.

Sourced from the Transnet National Ports Authority, the monthly datasets span January 2018 to September 2026 and cover eight ports.

• TRP — Cargo Handling by Port and Cargo Type lets users explore dry bulk, liquid bulk, breakbulk and vehicles, with breakdowns covering imports, exports, coastwise and transhipment cargo. Businesses and researchers can use it to compare ports’ cargo profiles, track seasonal flows and investigate changes in trade activity.
• TRV — Vessel Arrivals by Port and Vessel Type records arrival numbers and gross tonnage across vessel categories. It helps users examine changes in shipping activity and vessel mix, from bulk carriers and tankers to container and passenger vessels.
• TRT — Container Throughput by Port and Movement Type measures container movements in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs), distinguishing full and empty containers, shipped and landed movements, and deepsea, coastwise and transhipment traffic. These breakdowns support analysis of container flows and empty-container repositioning.

September’s figures illustrate the value of looking across the datasets. Cargo excluding vehicles fell 5.9% year on year to 19.98 million tons, while vessel arrivals declined 4.9% to 890 and container throughput decreased 5.0% to 460,203 TEUs. Users can drill down by port, cargo or movement type to investigate where these changes occurred.

Together, the datasets can help logistics businesses plan around seasonal demand, analysts monitor physical trade flows, and planners assess how activity is distributed across ports. Comparing container throughput with container-vessel arrivals, for example, can reveal changes in throughput per arrival—although this alone does not measure port efficiency.

Explore TRP, TRV and TRT on EasyData to build a more detailed picture of South Africa’s maritime economy.

Source: TNPA via EasyData, retrieved 28 October 2026. Percentage changes calculated from published all-port totals. Gross tonnage measures vessel size, rather than cargo weight.