Portcast continuously monitors active operational and geopolitical disruptions around the world and automatically flags which ports, vessels, and shipments are at risk — so you can get a clear view on the magnitude of impact of these disruptions in your supply chain. This article explains how that process works, from detecting a disruption to surfacing a risk alert on your shipment.

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Disruption risks under the Portcast platform currently cover geopolitical events (sanctions, conflict zones, military activity, embargoes, border closures, regional advisories), port-level events (closures, strikes, congestion advisories, security alerts), and vessel-level events (accidents, groundings, detentions, sanctions, and vessels calling at risk-flagged ports). More risk types may be added in the future.

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How Portcast detects disruptions

Portcast continuously ingests risk signals from news feeds, maritime and government advisories, and partner data sources. Each signal is normalised into a structured risk event with:

• A risk type (e.g. geopolitical event, vessel incident, port disruption)
• The entities affected (one or more ports, a geographic risk area, a specific vessel)
• An active window — the start, and where known the end, of the disruption
• A severity classification

A risk event is treated as active while the current time falls within its active window. Events are continuously re-evaluated as new information arrives — windows can be extended, shortened, or closed as the situation evolves.

Each event carries a unique identifier so updates are always tied to the right disruption, even when multiple events affect the same port or vessel at once.

How risk severity is classified

Portcast classifies disruption severity as Low, Medium, or High, based on the expected operational impact of the event — for example, a brief congestion advisory will be classified differently from a multi-day port closure or a newly imposed sanctions regime affecting an entire region.

Please note - when viewing containers at risk via the Command Center, risk severity does not equate to the risk level that the user can define via its custom thresholds. This is still up to the user to define based on their custom use case and associated risk thresholds.

How ports at risk are identified

For every active risk event tied to a port, Portcast flags that port as at risk for the duration of the event's active window, with a specific impact start date and end date.

Only active container ports are considered. This filters out minor or dormant facilities that would create noise without meaningful operational impact.

Example: If a labour strike at the Port of Long Beach is announced from 22–25 August, the port is flagged at risk from 22 August to 25 August. Any vessel scheduled to call there during that window — and any shipment on board — will be evaluated for risk.