By: OrePulse

South Africa's state port operator is investigating persistent truck congestion outside the Port of Durban and has acknowledged widespread equipment failures and aging infrastructure that have left ships waiting up to 99 hours to berth at Durban's container terminals, according to its chief executive.

Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) chief executive Mohammed Abdool raised the congestion along Bayhead Road, the main route into the port, while presenting an operational review to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Transport on Tuesday. Social media posts have separately drawn attention to trucks queued on Umbilo Road, Sydney Road, South Coast Junction and Solomon Mahlangu Drive.

Abdool told the committee that aging infrastructure and outdated equipment, chronic congestion, vessels too large for the port's limits, and weak rail and hinterland links were among the authority's biggest challenges. He also pointed to deferred and reactive maintenance, shortages of critical spare parts, supply-chain delays, and gaps in the authority's information-technology capabilities.

On marine-service delays at the Durban Gateway Terminal, Abdool said TNPA needs to invest in additional ship-to-shore and straddle cranes, and that the authority is separately examining truck congestion outside the terminals.

TNPA figures through July 2026 show ships waited an average of 61 hours to berth at Durban Container Terminal's Pier 1 and 99 hours at Pier 2. Abdool attributed the Pier 1 delays to equipment breakdowns and weather-related stoppages that limited crane availability, including two cranes taken offline for scheduled maintenance. At Pier 2, he cited equipment failures, reduced crane capacity from planned maintenance, malfunctioning refrigerated container units, tidal restrictions on vessel movement, and a high volume of mid-to-large cargo parcels during the peak season for refrigerated goods.

Other South African terminals reported their own strains. Ngqura, in Algoa Bay, saw repeated breakdowns of its ship-to-shore cranes along with reefer-handling issues, rough weather, high tides, equipment jams on older vessels, changes to loading sequences, and power and systems failures. Port Elizabeth's container terminal, by contrast, met its targets, helped by larger cargo parcels — most vessels there handled more than 1,000 twenty-foot equivalent units — despite its own weather disruptions and crane and straddle-carrier breakdowns.

"Weather remains the primary systemic risk, accounting for the majority of delays across six of the eight ports. Durban is the key area requiring intervention, with marine services accounting for 16% of delayed movements and the lowest on-time pickup rate," Abdool said, adding that Richards Bay, Cape Town and Saldanha Bay had kept strong service reliability despite the sector-wide weather disruptions.

To address the problems, Abdool outlined a "Reinvent for Growth" strategy intended to restore operational efficiency and cut logistics costs by improving how quickly vessels turn around across the port system. Planned steps include deepening berths at Durban Container Terminal to accommodate deeper-draft vessels, expanding Cape Town Container Terminal's capacity to 1.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units, and replacing dry-dock jib cranes in Durban, East London and Cape Town. TNPA also intends to bring a liquefied natural gas terminal into operation and add capacity for fresh produce and liquid bulk cargo at Richards Bay, shift manganese exports from Port Elizabeth to Ngqura, and advance the Boegoebaai Port Development in the Northern Cape, which the authority describes as a strategic greenfield initiative meant to unlock regional economic potential by supporting bulk exports and enabling future green-energy and industrial development.

Durban Metro Police spokesperson Colonel Boysie Zungu said the department is dealing with truck congestion daily and that a fuller, more detailed operational response from the force's regional teams would be provided soon.