Cargo volume has skyrocketed at the Port of Los Angeles over the last year, according to new numbers released on March 18. 

In a media briefing, Port of Los Angeles executive director Gene Seroka laid out how the port has seen a 60% year-over-year increase in February in the number of Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) processed. 

To start 2024, the Port of Los Angeles has already moved around 1.6 million TEUs, marking a 35% bump over that same period last year. Seroka says that number is roughly in line with what the port was processing before the pandemic in 2019. 

“Market confidence in our gateway is as strong as it’s ever been,” Seroka said, sharing that the port is operating at an estimated 75-80 percent capacity. “We’ve got the world’s best longshore workforce eager to work with a long-term contract in place, and our current operational data indicates that cargo is flowing efficiently, with additional capacity available."

That said, the Port of Los Angeles is also currently experiencing longer than usual rail container dwell times. As of March 15, Seroka reported around 12,500 rail containers waiting on the docks, with average dwell times between five and eight days. He said that's likely due to some "extenuating circumstances" like recent outages on rails and imports that needed to be moved to ancillary yards. 

Seroka noted that ideally there would be closer to 9,000 containers at any given time, with dwell times closer to two to four days.