An inland container depot, or ICD, is a dry port: an inland facility with customs status where containers are received, stored, cleared, and handed over, connected to seaports by rail or road. Shippers far from the coast can complete port formalities at the ICD instead.
The ICD moves the port to the cargo: customs examination and clearance, container stuffing and stripping, empty storage, and bonded transit to and from the gateway. In markets like India and East Africa, ICDs are where much of the actual trade paperwork happens.
Commercially an ICD routing shifts risk and cost structure: the ocean carrier may issue a through document to the ICD, bonded rail or truck moves link it to the seaport, and free time and storage rules apply at the depot in addition to the port.
ICD cargo adds one more leg and one more clock: gateway discharge, bonded move inland, ICD arrival, clearance, delivery. In TrackingMCP the seaport discharge is mid-journey for such boxes, and the inland arrival is the event that matters for pick-up planning; gateway congestion visible on port pages propagates directly into ICD arrival delays.
An inland container depot, or ICD, is a dry port: an inland facility with customs status where containers are received, stored, cleared, and handed over, connected to seaports by rail or road. Shippers far from the coast can complete port formalities at the ICD instead.
A ramp is a transfer point; an ICD is a customs-empowered dry port. Many ICDs contain rail terminals, but their defining feature is clearance and bonded status, not the tracks.
That is the point: cargo moves under bond from the gateway and clears at the inland depot, where examination and release happen closer to the consignee.
Track inland legs →
Gateway port pages →
More in Inland moves & equipment: Drayage · Chassis · Street turn · Rail ramp · Pre-carriage & on-carriage · Multimodal vs intermodal · Carrier haulage vs merchant haulage · Reefer (refrigerated container) · High-cube container · Flat rack container · Out of gauge (OOG) · SOC vs COC containers · Tare weight · Seal number · Browse all 106 terms →