Transshipment

Transshipment is the transfer of a container from one vessel to another at an intermediate port, typically from an intercontinental mainline ship to a regional feeder or vice versa. It underpins the hub-and-spoke architecture of container networks, letting carriers connect hundreds of port pairs with a limited number of direct services.

Hubs such as Singapore, Tanger Med or Algeciras owe most of their throughput to transshipment. The trade-off is extra port handling and connection risk: a missed connection at the hub delays the container by days.