Container transport Rotterdam - Antwerp

LTC Logistics runs container transport Rotterdam-Antwerp, moving containers between our two home ports, often with reefer on board. The trip takes about 1.5 hours and runs several times a week, planned around the sailing schedules of both ports rather than a fixed daily service.

Rotterdam-Antwerp is a different lane from our routes into Germany. It is not a trip from port to hinterland, but a move between our two home ports. Containers go back and forth here for reasons tied to the sailing schedules of shipping lines, not to a fixed customer route.

The most common reason to run this lane is that a shipping line calls at Antwerp but not Rotterdam for a given cargo, or the other way around. A shipper who normally works out of Rotterdam but whose cargo came in on a vessel that only called at Antwerp needs a road link between the two ports to get the container where it belongs. We drive that move, usually with a shorter turnaround than a detour by water would take.

Reefer plays a bigger role on this lane than on our other routes. Chilled cargo that has to move from one vessel to another cannot wait for the next barge schedule; the temperature has to stay protected from the moment the container leaves the quay. The reefer trailers we schedule run with their own genset, so the cooling keeps going, even when the trip between two ports takes a little longer than planned because of congestion at one of the terminals.

Because both ports sit within the EU, there is no border that counts for the road transport itself: no export declaration, no customs post along the way. What does matter is that Rotterdam and Antwerp each have their own systems for checking a truck in at a terminal. A driver with a routine in Rotterdam has to work with different references and a different gate in Antwerp. We know both systems and make sure the right details are ready in advance.

A terminal busier than expected on either side is the biggest source of delay on this lane. A gate that backs up in Antwerp hits not only this trip but also the connection to the vessel the container has to go back onto. Because there is no fixed daily service behind this lane the way there is for Duisburg, we plan every trip here separately, with a margin that allows for the current congestion at both terminals.

For shippers who need this kind of inter-port trip regularly, the real gain is the direct lines we have into both ports. No detour through a third party, no needless transshipment: the container goes straight from one quay to the other, with the same planner who handles the rest of your cargo too.

Antwerp is also a large chemical and tank-storage region, and we see that reflected in the type of cargo that comes along on this lane. Besides reefer, we regularly run ADR-certified transport here too, for instance for raw materials that arrive in Rotterdam and move further down the chain in Antwerp, or the other way around. Two ports, two cargo profiles, one and the same planner who knows both.

Because this lane has no fixed daily service, we plan it differently from Duisburg or Venlo: not around a time slot that is the same every day, but around the request that comes in. Request a trip today and you will hear back the same day whether and when we can schedule a charter, and for reefer we plan the genset in right away.