busiest_locks
ClaudeRank locks.
by is one of: barges, lockages, median_wait, hours_waited, waiting_now.Overview
Lock Wait answers questions about the 192 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers navigation locks on the Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois, Gulf Intracoastal, Columbia and other waterways. Ask how many tows are waiting at a lock now, the Corps' four-hour average delay, whether a stoppage is active, the typical wait to lock through, the most recent lockages, the busiest locks, every lock on a waterway, or where a towing company's boats locked through. Current conditions come from the Corps' Lock Performance Monitoring System, archived by Lock Wait every 15 minutes. Every answer carries the Corps status time and the time Lock Wait collected it, so stale data is never presented as live. "Wait" is arrival to start of lockage as measured by Lock Wait. It is not an official Corps figure, and missing data is reported as missing, not as zero. Limitations: no cargo, shipper or destination detail; operator matches may reflect earlier vessel ownership; times are lock local time as reported. Read-only, no account needed. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Tools
lock_status
ClaudeCurrent conditions at one lock from the Corps' 15-minute status report: tows waiting, 4-hour average delay (minutes), active stoppage, notices, gauges.
lock is an id (OH-79) or a name.lock_wait_stats
ClaudeArchived traffic and waits at one lock: lockages, barges, median and 90th-percentile wait for commercial tows (hours) over the whole archive and the median over the trailing two weeks, daily lockage counts, busiest operators. Prefer the recent median for "how long is the wait now".
operator_summary
ClaudeWhere a towing company's boats locked through and how long they waited, matched from the Corps' 2022 vessel file and FCC licences (a boat sold since may show its previous operator).
recent_lockages
ClaudeThe most recent lockages at one lock: arrival (lock local time), wait hours, direction, barges, vessel and operator.
river_summary
ClaudeEvery lock on one waterway, in river-mile order, with traffic and waits. Example: river="Ohio River".
search_locks
ClaudeFind locks by name, town, state or river. Returns lock ids for the other tools. Example: query="olmsted" or river="Ohio River".
