MarineRadar’s Container Tracking Map, Explained
In this article 6 sections
You’ve already got the container number off the delivery note, you’ve pasted it into MarineRadar’s search bar, and the Container Journey screen has come back with a status, a timeline, and now a small map sitting between the two. That map is the newest piece of the container tracking map in MarineRadar: a route line from port of loading to port of discharge, with a ship icon sitting somewhere along it and a button that opens the same view full screen. It’s not showing you a live broadcast from the vessel. It’s showing you where the box should be, worked out from the dates on its own tracked milestones, and that distinction matters more than it sounds like it should.
What the Route Map Actually Draws
Open a container’s journey and scroll past the timeline of events, and you’ll hit a card labeled Route Map. It’s a compact Mapbox view, about the height of two text messages stacked, with a thin red line running between a handful of red dots. Each dot is a stop: origin, port of loading, port of discharge, destination, wherever the carrier’s own data has supplied coordinates. A ship icon sits somewhere on that line, rotated to face the direction of travel. The line itself isn’t drawn straight between just those four stops, either. MarineRadar pulls every dated event in the container’s history that has a location attached, sorts it by time, and threads the route through all of it in order, so a transshipment port that never shows up as a named stop but does carry coordinates still bends the line through it.
Tap the Show in Map button in the corner and the same route opens full screen, with more room to read the port names stacked under each dot and the dates beneath them. Nothing changes about what’s being shown, just the size.
The Ship Icon Is an Estimate, Not a Live Position
This is the part worth being precise about, because it’s easy to glance at a moving ship icon on a map inside a ship-tracking app and assume it’s AIS. It isn’t, not here. The container tracking map doesn’t know where the vessel carrying your box is broadcasting from right now. It knows the dates attached to the container’s own tracked events, such as when it was loaded, when it’s expected to reach the port of discharge, and it draws a straight line between the two points in time and space, then places the ship icon wherever a steady pace between them would put it as of the last time MarineRadar refreshed that container’s data.
Picture a box that left Ningbo on the 3rd and is booked to discharge at Long Beach on the 19th. Six days in, the app isn’t checking the ship’s actual course. It’s doing the arithmetic: roughly a third of the time has passed, so the icon sits roughly a third of the way along the great-circle path, bearing pointed toward Long Beach. If the ship slows for weather, diverts around a storm, or waits outside the anchorage for a berth, the icon won’t know. It’ll keep ticking along the straight line at the original pace until the next dated event lands and resets the calculation.
That’s still useful. A rough position beats no position when you’re trying to get a sense of how far along a shipment is, and MarineRadar falls back to actual geo-tagged events when they exist, which tightens the estimate considerably on a well-documented route. But if you want the real-time picture, where the ship is this hour, the way AIS actually works, that’s a separate lookup, and the Container Journey screen gives you a path to it.
Shipment Details: Port of Loading, Port of Discharge, Carrier
Right above the route map sits a smaller card, Shipment Details, and it’s easy to skim past because it’s just two or three lines of text. It’s worth reading anyway. On the left it names your port of loading, the flag and city where the container actually went on board the vessel. On the right, the port of discharge, where it comes off. Below both, when the carrier’s data includes it, the name of the shipping company running the box.
These aren’t always the same as origin and destination:
- Origin can be an inland depot, trucked to a coastal port before the box ever touches water.
- Destination can be a warehouse two rail segments past the port of discharge, well inland from where the ship lets go of it.
Port of loading and port of discharge mark the ocean leg specifically, the stretch with the least visibility and the longest gap between updates, which is usually the part people are actually anxious about. If a container’s record is missing both port fields and the carrier name, the card doesn’t render at all rather than showing a row of dashes. Carrier naming conventions vary enough that it’s worth knowing your own line’s habits going in, whether that’s reading up on how COSCO numbers its boxes or on Evergreen’s own container prefixes.
Reading the Container Journey Screen
Step 1: Open the search bar from the home screen
From MarineRadar’s home screen, tap into search the same way you would to look up a ship by name.
Step 2: Enter your container ID
Type the container number exactly as printed on your bill of lading or delivery note, four letters followed by seven digits, such as MSCU1234567. The app flags the format if it’s off before it even tries the lookup.
Step 3: Tap Track Container
MarineRadar checks the number against carrier data and, if it finds a match, opens the Container Journey screen with whatever history is on file.
Step 4: Check the header for status and arrival date
The top card shows the shipment status and the estimated arrival date at a glance, alongside the carrier’s name.
Step 5: Read Shipment Details for the ocean leg
Below the header, the Shipment Details card names the actual port of loading and port of discharge, not just origin and destination.
Step 6: Scroll to Route Map for the visual route
The Route Map card plots the stops as a line with an estimated ship position in between. Tap Show in Map for the full-screen view.
Step 7: Open the Timeline for the full event history
Every dated event the carrier has logged, gate in, loaded, departed, arrived, discharged, sits below the map in order, each with its own location when one’s attached.
Step 8: Tap a vessel name in the timeline to find the real ship
Where an event names the vessel carrying your container, tapping it searches for that ship by name and opens its own page, which is where you get an actual AIS position if the vessel is currently broadcasting one.
Where This Fits With AIS Tracking
MarineRadar’s core map runs on AIS, the system ships use to broadcast their own position, course, speed, and identity every few seconds. It’s genuinely live, genuinely the ship’s own data, and it’s also never going to carry a manifest, because a container number belongs to a completely separate record kept by the shipping line, not the vessel. That’s exactly why the two features sit next to each other instead of merged into one, and why the route map interpolates rather than pulling a live feed. Read what an AIS tracking system actually shows if that distinction between vessel broadcasts and cargo records still isn’t clear.
The container tracking map bridges the gap partway, giving you a route and a rough position without needing the carrier’s own site first. The moment a vessel name shows up in the timeline, it hands you off to live ship tracking for the real thing. If your carrier is Maersk or Yang Ming specifically, each has its own quirks in how container numbers and prefixes work, covered separately in Maersk’s container tracking guide and the Yang Ming tracking walkthrough. None of this needs a paid plan to read, though pulling a fresh container’s full journey draws from MarineRadar’s container lookup credits, and re-checking a container you’ve already looked up doesn’t cost anything further.
FAQs
Does MarineRadar track a shipping container in real time?
No. The container tracking map shows an estimated position worked out from the dates on the container’s own tracked events, not a live broadcast from the ship. The ship icon moves along a straight line between the last known point and the next expected one at a steady pace, so it won’t reflect a diversion, a slowdown, or a port delay until the next dated event updates the picture.
What's the difference between port of loading and origin?
Origin can be an inland point, such as a depot the container was trucked from before ever reaching water. Port of loading is specifically where it went onto the vessel for the ocean leg, which is the stretch the route map and Shipment Details card are built to show.
Why does the Route Map card sometimes not appear?
It needs at least two located points to draw a line, so a container record with no geocoded ports or events won’t produce a map. Check the Timeline section instead, which lists whatever dated events exist even without coordinates.
Can I see the actual ship carrying my container on AIS?
Yes, when the timeline names the vessel. Tap the vessel name in any event row and MarineRadar searches for that ship by name, opening its own page with a live AIS position if the ship is currently broadcasting one.
What format does a container number need to be in?
Four letters followed by seven digits, such as MSCU1234567. MarineRadar checks the format before running the lookup and tells you straight away if it’s off.
Does the container tracking map show cargo contents?
No. Nothing in MarineRadar, including the container tracking map, carries manifest or cargo data. It shows shipment status, ports, dates, and an estimated route, all sourced from the carrier’s own tracking record for that container number.
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