Port of Savannah Reports Busiest February on Record

The Georgia Ports Authority moved 479,850 twenty-foot equivalent container units in February ever, a 6% increase over the same month last year.

It marks GPA’s busiest February ever.

GPA’s intermodal team set a new record for rail moves completed in 24 hours, with 2,246 rail lifts on Feb. 28. The Port of Savannah’s Mason Mega Rail Terminal handles six trains per day or 42 per week. Dwell time at GPA between an import box offloading from a vessel and departing on rail is an industry-leading 19-24 hours.

Despite the high volumes, the container field remained fluid, with yard and gate teams coordinating to keep trucks moving. Garden City Terminal also set a new record for weekly truck gate moves, handling 78,950 transactions in the last week of February.

Dual container moves, with drivers delivering an export and picking up an import container, accounted for 85 percent of the Port of Savannah’s container business in February, aiding overall efficiency.

Performance continued strong into March, with a single-day truck gate record of 16,430 transactions set on March 11 at Garden City Terminal.

Gateway Terminals and the local ILA have agreed to add three new start times to work vessels – at 6 a.m., 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.

The Port of Savannah averages 35 vessels per week and will also increase vessel capacity by using a new lay berth at Ocean Terminal starting in May.

Staging vessels at Ocean Terminal will drastically reduce the transition time between large ships departing and arriving. When the lay berth is used, the time a berth is open and unused at Garden City Terminal will improve by up to 75%, from 12 to 3 hours.

A second lay berth at Ocean Terminal will come online in mid-2026, further increasing Savannah’s vessel capacity.

In Roll-on/Roll-off trade, the Port of Brunswick moved 61,667 units of autos and heavy equipment in February, down 10 percent or 6,882 units compared to the same month a year ago. Colonel’s Island Terminal in Brunswick handled 42 vessel calls for the month, three fewer than February 2024.