Photo: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, 2010.
Most container terminals have an empty stacking area that acts as a pool for exporters. Terminals tend to have an imbalanced container traffic, meaning that for ports that import more full containers than they export, empty containers are brought back from the hinterland to either be made available to local exporters or placed on containerships to be repositioned. For ports that export more full containers than they export, empty containers are mainly brought in by containerships to be placed in empty piles for exporters.