A moving truck cannot be loaded or unloaded. That makes a certain amount of dwell time — the total time a driver spends parked at a customer’s facility, including while loading or unloading — unavoidable.

But, too often, drivers experience excessive or unexpected delays. Anticipated dwell time then becomes frustrating detention time.

The issue, and the resulting costs to carriers, shippers and drivers, are well-known. But two keys to solving the problem were missing. The first was a standardized way to measure dwell and detention time across the nationwide network of facilities. The second was a database of that information, accessible by carriers and shippers industry-wide.

That measurement technique and database are now available, enabling carriers to make better decisions in planning their operations, managing their drivers and working with shippers to improve everyone’s performance. Rather than suffering a domino effect of negative consequences, carriers can make adjustments that have a positive effect on their operations and, indeed, the entire supply chain.

A Long-Standing Problem

How big is the detention time problem?

• It has appeared on the American Transportation Research Institute’s annual list of critical issues since 2019.
• It reduces annual earnings of for-hire commercial motor vehicle drivers in the truckload sector by an estimated $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion.
• A 15-minute increase in average dwell time raises the expected crash rate by an estimated 6.2%.
• David Heller, senior vice president of safety and government affairs for the Truckload Carriers Association, told TheTrucker.com, “As an industry that averages six and a half hours of drive time per day out of the 11 hours that were federally regulated, that is a problem,” adding that up to one hour of that drive time is spent just searching for parking.

The Missing Link

A 2018 report by the U.S. Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General noted significant holes in the then-available data on dwell and detention time. Most carriers only tracked it when it exceeded what was stipulated in the shipping contract. Electronic data did not distinguish between detention time and legitimate loading/unloading time, and it was only available for a small segment of the industry.

But the information needed to begin solving the problem is now available. Actionable industry-wide dwell time metrics have been created by combining Trimble’s library of highly accurate data on millions of shipping facilities nationwide with data from trucks’ electronic logging devices (ELDs) and carriers’ other systems.

The location data includes precise polygonal geofences for pick-up and drop-off locations. When a truck crosses a geofence, the system records the time, providing accurate documentation of how long the truck was at the facility. This data is then combined with other information from the ELD and from the transportation and fleet management systems, such as the type of goods being hauled, whether the trailer had to be unloaded or dropped off and if the driver remained on the clock or took a break.

The result is a database of average dwell times at the facility, broken down by time of day and day of the week. Carriers and shippers can view fully anonymized aggregated data across all fleets, carrier-specific data or averages for an individual driver. 

Optimizing the Supply Chain

Any carrier or shipper can integrate its data into the metrics, access the metrics, and act upon the information as they see fit, regardless of which transportation technology provider’s products they use. The goal is to improve the whole industry by optimizing the connected supply chain.

“By providing a standard of measurement that provides insights into how much time is being spent at each facility, we can bring about awareness and help improve the turnaround time at multiple facilities,” said Rishi Mehra, vice president of commercial mapping and location intelligence at Trimble. “That, in turn, will help bring about an overall increase in driven miles and improved freight movement across the industry.”

Procurement

Improvement can begin with the procurement process and extend through the entire supply chain. With detailed dwell and detention time data, carriers can develop more accurate bids, helping ensure that drivers are compensated fairly and reducing the need for detention charges. If working with a customer that has above-average dwell times, the metrics can be shared to justify a higher rate or provide leverage in negotiating for appointment times that will minimize delays.

Route Planning

Having a clear picture of how long a truck will spend at a facility can be a powerful tool for maximizing drivers’ service hours.

“It’s essential to know where a driver will run out of available hours, because waiting at a customer’s facility might use them up, and then the driver can’t haul anything back,” Mehra said. 

For example, can a driver get to the customer earlier in the day, when the turnaround time is usually shorter, and come back for another load? Can the driver use some of the time for a break? Or can their collected dwell/detention time be better used on new delivery opportunities?

Happier Drivers

Sharing the data with drivers before they set out can go a long way in alleviating a significant frustration — arriving at a customer’s facility at the scheduled time only to face a long and unexpected wait.

“The surprises are the things that cause the biggest angst among drivers,” Mehra said. “That is what causes drivers to jump from one carrier to another. If carriers use the data to feed drivers relevant information so they know what’s coming, it makes their day much better.”

Improved Shipper Operations

Shippers also can use dwell time metrics to improve their operations.

“Shippers want to be the shipper of choice,” Mehra said. “They want carriers bidding for their routes. An important part of that is showing that they can turn loads around quickly and don’t hold drivers up.”

The metrics can provide insights into why backups occur and identify steps to shorten them, such as changing appointment times, adding staff or shifting staff to busier times.

Conclusion

Detention time is a critical issue in the transportation industry, costing carriers, drivers and shippers alike. New dwell time metrics can help solve this persistent problem, providing transparency and information to benefit the entire supply chain. More information is available from Trimble.