diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ccfb647..3a3d84a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -156,8 +156,15 @@ sudo mkdir -p /opt/trains/data/elastic && sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /opt/trains
 
 ### Launching Docker Containers
 
-Launch the Docker containers. For example, if your data directory is `/opt/trains`,
-then use the following commands:
+**Note**:
+* If your data directory is not `/opt/trains`, please find and replace `/opt/trains` in the following commands with your data directory path
+
+* Make sure ports `8008`, `8080` and `8081` are not in use before starting the docker containers, as the containers will fail to initialize if these ports are already taken. If the following commands shows no output, the ports are available:
+    ```bash
+    sudo netstat -tplna | egrep "8008|8080|8081"
+    ```  
+
+To launch the Docker containers, use the following commands: 
 
 ```bash
 sudo docker run -d --restart="always" --name="trains-elastic" -e "ES_JAVA_OPTS=-Xms2g -Xmx2g" -e "bootstrap.memory_lock=true" -e "cluster.name=trains" -e "discovery.zen.minimum_master_nodes=1" -e "node.name=trains" -e "script.inline=true" -e "script.update=true" -e "thread_pool.bulk.queue_size=2000" -e "thread_pool.search.queue_size=10000" -e "xpack.security.enabled=false" -e "xpack.monitoring.enabled=false" -e "cluster.routing.allocation.node_initial_primaries_recoveries=500" -e "node.ingest=true" -e "http.compression_level=7" -e "reindex.remote.whitelist=*.*" -e "script.painless.regex.enabled=true" --network="host" -v /opt/trains/data/elastic:/usr/share/elasticsearch/data docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch:5.6.16