Saudi Arabia opens world's largest truck marshalling area

Saudi Arabia has inaugurated what it is calling the world's largest truck marshalling area at Jeddah Islamic Port, a one million square meter facility that officials say will reshape how cargo moves in and out of one of the kingdom's busiest maritime gateways. The launch happened alongside the signing of seven new logistics investment agreements worth more than SR1 billion, roughly 267 million dollars, underscoring how much weight Riyadh is putting behind this single infrastructure push. The new staging area was inaugurated by Saleh Al Jasser, the minister of transport and logistics services, and has been designated as the mandatory first stop for trucks heading into the port before they proceed toward gates 4 through 9. In practical terms, that means every truck entering or leaving Jeddah Port through those gates will now pass through this single corridor first, rather than queuing haphazardly around the city as has often happened in the past. According to figures shared by the Saudi Ports Authority, known locally as Mawani, the facility can handle up to 40,000 trucks a day and accommodate around 2,700 vehicles moving simultaneously in both directions. The site includes smart flow management systems, dedicated waiting zones, and driver amenities along with operational and administrative offices, built through a partnership involving Mawani, the General Authority for Roads, the technology firm Elm, and property developer Roshn Group. The thinking behind the project is fairly straightforward. Jeddah is a city that absorbs tens of thousands of truck movements every day, and that volume has historically spilled into urban streets, creating congestion and safety headaches well beyond the port gates themselves. By funneling all transit traffic through one controlled staging point before it reaches the terminals, Mawani is aiming to cut wait times, reduce chaos on city roads, and give drivers a proper place to rest and manage paperwork rather than idling on the roadside. Al Jasser framed the move as part of a larger story about how Saudi Arabia's logistics sector has adapted to shifting global shipping patterns, noting that the kingdom has been redirecting a growing share of trade toward its western coast ports as international shipping routes evolve. The launch was not an isolated announcement either. It came bundled with a set of major private sector commitments, including an expansion of Maersk's logistics zone at the port, which the shipping giant says is now its largest such zone anywhere in the world, and a first of its kind investment from Chinese firm GD Logistics covering projects in both Jeddah Port and the nearby Al Khumrah area, marking the company's biggest investment outside China. Several other Saudi firms also signed on to establish new logistics zones during the same event, pushing total private investment in logistics zones across Saudi ports to around SR15 billion and bringing the total number of such zones to 34 nationwide. For the wider Gulf, this kind of infrastructure buildout matters beyond Saudi borders. Jeddah has long competed with UAE hubs like Jebel Ali for transshipment traffic moving between Asia, Europe, and Africa, and a marshalling area of this scale signals that Saudi Arabia intends to close the efficiency gap that has traditionally favored Dubai's port ecosystem. UAE ports still hold an edge in free zone flexibility and established shipping line relationships, but Saudi Arabia's willingness to pour billions into physical capacity, paired with Vision 2030's broader push to position the kingdom as a logistics gateway linking three continents, is the kind of long game that regional freight forwarders and shipping lines are watching closely. If Jeddah can consistently deliver faster truck turnaround and less port side congestion, it becomes a more attractive call for carriers currently weighing their options across Gulf ports, adding another layer of competition to a region where logistics infrastructure has increasingly become a point of national pride and economic strategy.