Middle East Business

Half a million containers have crossed the Gulf by road and rail since March

By Staff Writer  |  22 August 2026

The overland network now carries about 3,000 lorry movements a day, and a 100,000 square metre empty container depot has opened at Al Awir in Dubai with a rail connection held open for later.

Five hundred thousand twenty-foot equivalent units have moved across the Gulf states by road and rail since March on the inland network operated by DP World, the company said on Friday. The network now supports around 3,000 lorry movements a day, after 700 vehicles were added to the fleet to widen cross-border and domestic freight capacity.

Three route changes sit behind the figure. Fast-track bonded corridors now run from the east coast gateways directly into Jebel Ali. A bonded corridor has been established from Sohar in Oman. Red Sea routing is available through the South Container Terminal at Jeddah Islamic Port.

Moving half a million TEUs overland shows the scale, resilience and flexibility of our network beyond the terminal gates. Our extensive inland logistics capabilities give shipping lines and cargo owners more routing options and more certainty in how they move goods through the region, helping them adapt quickly when conditions change.

Ahmad Yousef Al-Hassan, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of DP World GCC

A depot outside the port gate, and what it is for

The second half of the announcement is a 100,000 square metre inland empty container depot at Al Awir in Dubai. It adds empty storage and release capacity outside Jebel Ali Port and is intended to serve Dubai, Sharjah and the Northern Emirates. The site has direct access to Emirates Road, connects to industrial areas across the country, and the operator says it leaves room for container movement by rail through Etihad Rail at some later point. It takes 20, 40 and 45 foot empty boxes and offers inspection, condition reporting and inventory management for shipping lines.

Raveen Guliani, Chief Operating Officer for Logistics at DP World GCC, said the arrangement would let operators "reduce unnecessary movements to the port and make it easier for shipping lines and logistics companies to access and reposition equipment".

Why a second route is a contractual question

For anyone running a materials programme into the region, the practical point is that a second route now exists on paper for cargo that would previously have moved one way. That changes the questions a contract administrator has to ask when a delivery is late.

Where a published alternative route exists and was not used, the party seeking relief for a shipping delay can expect to be asked why. Whether that matters depends entirely on the wording of the clause relied on, and on whether the alternative was actually available at the time, at a price and a transit time the contract can bear.

None of that follows automatically from an operator opening a corridor. A bonded corridor is a customs arrangement rather than a guarantee of capacity, and no figures have been published for the throughput of any single corridor, for the transit times achieved on them, or for what the road leg costs against the sea leg it replaces. Those are the numbers a claim would eventually turn on, and they are not in the announcement.

What is in the announcement is the direction of travel: 700 more lorries, a depot the size of fourteen football pitches outside the largest port in the region, and a rail connection named but not yet built.