Alt Data · Family 01

Shipping & trade flow

Vessels broadcast their position. Ports publish their throughput weeks later. The gap between the two is where this family does its work.

Series held

Fastest cadence

Daily

Dominant class

Published this cycle

Supports

Transit counts and declared draft at a named chokepoint. Congestion and turnaround at a terminal. Route substitution when a chokepoint closes. Counterparty pairs, once manifests clear customs.

Does not support

Cargo value, ownership, or intent. A vessel at anchor is not a delayed shipment until something else says so. Transponder gaps are absence of data, not absence of movement.

Series boardState as of the last write. Readings are zeroed until the desk publishes.

Chokepoint transit count B

Cited

12m window · Daily · 4 gates

Port call turnaround B

In use

12m window · Per call · 4 gates

Bill of lading manifest A

In use

12m window · Weekly · 4 gates

Dark period detection C

Evaluating

Not cited. A transponder gap has too many innocent causes to carry a claim on its own.

Charter rate scrape D

Not admitted

Provenance could not be established to the desk's standard. Listed so the refusal is on the record.

Published from this family

Shipping · feature

Berth queues diverge from reported throughput

Two measurements of the same port disagree, and the disagreement has a structural cause rather than a reporting one.

Correlation only · not confirmation

Desk noteRoute substitution after a chokepoint closure, measured in transits rather than statements

Method noteWhy the desk uses declared draft rather than published canal capacity

RefusalCharter rate scrape — Provenance could not be established to the desk's standard. Listed so the refusal is on the record.

How the desk reads this family

Measure the physical event

Position, transit, declared draft. Facts about hulls, not about companies.

Find the second record

A published statement or filing describing the same period.

Explain the gap

A divergence with no mechanism is a data problem, not a story.

State the falsifier

The reading that would close the gap without a structural cause.

Known blind spots

Coastal traffic below transponder thresholds
Terminals with no published throughput statement
Transhipment that splits one cargo across three calls
Inland handoff, which no vessel record reaches

Ask the desk agent to run a named series against a holding you follow — Alpha reads the registry's labeling before it answers.

Open Alpha