PORT OF NEW YORK &
NEW JERSEY LONG-TERM MASTERPLAN

The brief. The Port Authority needed a thirty-year masterplan across the entire port complex.

The challenge. The port comprises five international container terminals, three automotive terminals, two general cargo terminals, three liquid and dry bulk terminals, and two international cruise terminals. Each has its own operating logic, fleet and binding constraint, and all of them compete for the same channel capacity and landside access.

Planning for them meant running capacity models consistently across five distinct trade types, and building complex fleet forecasts that captured cascade effects in container, automotive, general cargo, bulk and cruise shipping at the same time. Every terminal in the port required capacity analysis and infrastructure planning across the channels, berths, terminals and localised landside transport networks.

What we did. We delivered all aspects of port planning for the project, strategic and operational, waterside and landside.

That included detailed capacity and operational modelling of all five international container terminals, with semi-automated and fully automated densification strategies phased over time and tested through cost-benefit analysis covering both financial and safety-driven benefits. The same approach was applied to the automotive, general cargo and high-and-heavy terminals, where we introduced international best practice to raise productivity and capacity while limiting capital exposure.

Alongside the terminal work we delivered multi-trade fleet profiling with cascade modelling, channel capacity analysis, origin-destination studies, and detailed infrastructure needs assessment at every berth, yard and gate.

We developed the complete set of expansion options, including operating regime changes, footprint changes and lease boundary rationalisation, supported by long-term analysis of trade pattern shifts, local industry drivers, international manufacturing and consumption change and city planning, with market engagement across more than fifty industry representatives.

The scope also covered sustainability and environmental compliance planning, staged cost estimates, cost-benefit analysis and advice on funding mechanisms including private investment structures and port operating models.

The outcome. The plan enables the Port Authority to handle up to 17 million TEU alongside its other trade types. It is one of the largest and most detailed port planning exercises undertaken in the United States and is already guiding the port's development.

 

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