What Previous Port Delay tells you
Before a vessel reaches your terminal, it has to load and depart its previous port. When that upstream call is running behind, the receiving dates the terminal has published for your port often move too. Previous Port Delay watches the inbound vessel and flags this early, so a shifting schedule does not surprise you after you have already planned your cargo.
It answers one operator question: can I trust this vessel's receiving dates enough to commit against them today?
Where it appears
Previous Port Delay shows up inside your Vessel Schedule Report by Terminal email, as a short line directly beneath the vessel it applies to. You do not have to turn anything on per vessel - when a vessel is at risk, the annotation is added to that row.
How to read it
- Schedule Mismatch Risk (amber flag) - the vessel is behind where it should be on its way to you, so the published ERD and CY Cutoff for your port are more likely than usual to change.
- Previous Port - the upstream port the vessel is coming from, or "(not yet observed)" when it has not been seen leaving yet.
- Expected - the previous port(s) the vessel was scheduled to call, followed by a plain-language note on what to watch.
A vessel with no flag is tracking normally against its schedule - no action needed.
What to do with it
- Hold off committing right up to the cut. If a vessel carries the flag, treat its receiving window as provisional and keep a little buffer rather than dispatching to the earliest published date.
- Re-check before you commit. The flag is a prompt to look again at that vessel's dates in your next report before you book drayage or move cargo to the terminal.
- Prioritize the flagged vessels. On a busy day, the flagged rows are the ones most worth a second look.
Coverage and limits
- The flag appears on vessels we can confidently associate with an upstream call on their way to your port; it will not appear on every vessel in every report.
- It is a heads-up that dates may move, not a guarantee that they will - always confirm against the latest published receiving dates.
- Availability can vary by port and lane. If you would like it enabled for your account, contact your TradeLanes contact.
