If a customer told you their container is at "the Oncor terminal," they probably meant POMTOC. There's no terminal at Port Miami called Oncor — it's a common mishearing of the acronym POMTOC, the Port of Miami Terminal Operating Company. Once you know that, the rest of the confusion clears up fast.
What POMTOC Actually Is
POMTOC stands for Port of Miami Terminal Operating Company. Miami-Dade County calls it out specifically because it's the only cargo terminal at the port that isn't owned or operated by a shipping line. Seaboard Marine and South Florida Container Terminal both have carrier ties. POMTOC operates independently and handles boxes for a mix of ocean carriers, including Maersk and MSC strings.
For a drayage driver, that independence matters less than the practical stuff: where the gate is, when it's open, and how the appointment system wants to be fed. POMTOC has modernized its terminal operating system in the past few years, running on Tideworks, and it moved to a cloud-based platform to handle rising volume through the port.
Gate Hours and Location
POMTOC's standard gate hours run Monday through Friday, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The terminal is closed weekends outside of posted exceptions during peak import season. Holiday schedules get posted separately, and they shift year to year — check POMTOC's own site before you plan a pickup around a holiday week.
Get there before 6:00 AM on a heavy volume day and you'll still be in a queue when the gate rolls up. Our drivers who work POMTOC regularly try to hit the gate in the first hour it's open, before the container yard backs up with trucks that missed their morning appointment window.
Booking Your Pickup
POMTOC runs appointments and cargo visibility through its Forecast portal, tied into the Tideworks system. You'll need your container number, the release status from your steamship line, and — if it's a reefer — confirmation of whether the move needs a reefer-capable chassis before the system will let you book.
Chassis availability isn't always visible inside the booking tool itself. If your load needs a specific chassis type, confirm equipment with the chassis provider or your drayage dispatcher before you lock in a time slot. Showing up to a booked appointment without the right chassis wastes the slot and pushes you into standby.
- Confirm customs release status before booking — POMTOC won't gate out a container with a hold
- Have your container number and booking reference ready before opening Forecast
- Reefer pickups need plug-in coordination confirmed in advance, not at the gate
- Print or save your appointment confirmation — gate staff will ask for it
POMTOC vs. Miami's Other Terminals
Port Miami runs three cargo terminals, and each one has its own gate hours, portal, and quirks. Mixing up which terminal your container sits at is the single most common reason a driver shows up to the wrong gate.
Your container's steamship line and bill of lading tell you which terminal it's landing at. Don't guess based on where your last shipment came through — carriers rotate berths, and the wrong guess costs you a wasted trip through port traffic.
What Trips Up First-Time Drivers
New drivers assume every Port Miami terminal runs the same booking software. It doesn't. A driver who's used to South Florida Container Terminal's process will hit friction the first time they try to book at POMTOC, simply because the portal looks and behaves differently.
The other common mistake: assuming a customs hold clears automatically once the freight physically arrives. It doesn't. POMTOC's gate system checks release status electronically, and a container with an open ISF match, a CBP exam flag, or an unpaid duty bill won't gate out no matter how early you show up.
At One A Trucks, we run drayage under the same roof as Guy Lichtenstein Customs House Brokerage, so we catch release issues before a truck ever gets dispatched to POMTOC. That's the advantage of pairing a bonded carrier with an in-house customs broker — nobody's guessing whether a container is actually ready to move.
Bottom Line
POMTOC isn't a mystery once you know what it stands for and how it operates. Independent terminal, Tideworks-based booking, weekday gate hours, and its own set of rules that don't match the other two cargo terminals at Port Miami. Confirm your terminal, confirm your release, confirm your chassis — in that order — before you send a truck.