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Seasonal container throughput forecasts at ports are immensely important to logistics companies, shipping lines, port authorities and shipyards. Such forecasts allow shipping lines and port operators to formulate appropriate short-to-medium strategies in order to maintain competitiveness. Seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (in short, SARIMA) models can be employed for this purpose to provide reliable seasonal forecasts of container throughput at a given container port. This article explores the use of SARIMA models in forecasting container throughput at several major international container ports, while taking into consideration seasonal variations. First, the SARIMA model development methodology is described. Second, a database consisting of monthly container port traffic data between 1999 and 2007 for international container ports is developed. Short-term container demand …