The problem
For years our 40 ft runs out of Apapa followed the same pattern: arrive at 08:00, join the queue on the access road, and wait. Some days the wait was four hours. Some days it was two days. Every hour on the bridge was an hour of a driver awake, a truck burning diesel at idle and a customer asking where the box was.
What we changed
We moved port runs to a window between 21:00 and 03:00. Trucks now wait at our own holding yard at Ijora instead of on the road, and a runner at the terminal calls them forward when the slot opens. Drivers sleep in the yard rest room until they are called.
The result
Across 1,400 container moves in the first half of 2026, the average gate-out time fell from about 13 hours to about 6. Detention charges passed on to customers fell by more than half, and two drivers told us they had not slept so well on port duty in years. These are example figures for this demo.
What it means for you
If you import through Apapa or Tin Can, ask for a night move when you book. There is no extra charge. The only change you will notice is that the box arrives at your warehouse early in the morning, so have a team ready to unstuff by 07:00.