Measuring Shipping Disruptions with Satellite Data

Using satellite vessel-tracking data from 2016 to early 2025, researchers constructed a common measure of shipping capacity loss for U.S.-bound container ships. During the 2021-22 supply chain crisis, utilization fell from 89% to below 70%. The Asia-to-U.S. West Coast route saw utilization drop from 92% to 53% by late 2021. In 2023, rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope due to Red Sea attacks reduced utilization on Asia-to-East Coast routes by about 21 percentage points. The study analyzed nearly 59,000 container-ship trips across six major routes to quantify the effective capacity lost to port congestion, canal bottlenecks, and geopolitical events.