A forwarder meets the unit wherever capacity is counted: vessel sizes, carrier fleet rankings, alliance capacity and terminal throughput figures, trade-lane statistics, weekly allocation discussions, and some per-unit carrier charges are all quoted in TEU. The counterpart unit is the FEU, the forty-foot equivalent unit: the space of one standard forty-foot container, which counts as two TEU. For a vessel or a fleet the TEU rating is nominal capacity, the space on offer rather than the load aboard on any given sailing.
Glossary
TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit)
The twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard measure of container capacity: the space of one standard twenty-foot container, used to size vessels, fleets, port throughput, and trade volumes.