Ocean carriers achieved a six-month high for liner service reliability in May, according to Drewry Supply Chain Advisors.

The on-time average of 76.0 percent for the 10 trades covered was a 4.1-point improvement on April,

representing the third straight month-on-month rise. Along with the better on-time performance came an improvement for the average deviation from the expected arrival at port. That number came down from 0.9 days in April to 0.8 days in May, the lowest it has been since December 2015.

Eight of the 10 routes covered recorded month-on-month increases in May. The were exceptions Asia-Africa, down by 11.9 points to 72.5 percent, and Asia-South America, which dropped by 1.5 points to 75.7 percent.

The biggest improvement was seen in the transpacific trade, which rose by 9.8 points to 76.3 percent,

the best since September of last year.

The most reliable carrier in May was OOCL, which had an on-time average of 81.1 percent, closely

followed by Wan Hai, at 81.01 percent, and Evergreen, at 80.3 percent. A further sign of the universal attempt by carriers to improve reliability was the fact that the spread between the most and least reliable carrier was below 11 points, as all lines scored above 70 percent.

“Service reliability is on a steadily improving path and is close to the heights reached in the

second-half of 2015,” said Simon Heaney, senior manager of supply chain research at Drewry. “We expect the trend to continue through the next few months as carriers put reliability close to the top of their marketing.”

Drewry’s Carrier Performance Insight provides the ability to benchmark the reliability performance of

container carriers on a port-to-port, trade lane, service, and industry-wide basis. This information is

available via a website powered by data from CargoSmart, the global shipment management software solutions provider.