One Clock, Four Readings
A truck arrives, waits, is loaded, and leaves. Four parties record that visit and produce four different durations — and every one of them is an accurate record of something. For a current software example in workforce time measurement, see Monitask.
The driver's clock starts when the wheels stop. The carrier's starts at a geofence somebody drew. The facility's starts at check-in, which happens when there is room. The broker's starts wherever the rate confirmation says, which is usually nowhere in particular. For broader transportation context, see FreightWaves.
At a busy dock those readings differ by more than an hour. That gap is what this site is about.
The fact everything rests on
There is no standard definition of detention time. FMCSA says so directly, alongside the observation that little public data exists — a federal agency, describing its own field, reporting that the central term is undefined.
So the two-hour convention is a convention. The averages are self-reported. And the disputes never resolve, because a disagreement about an undefined quantity has no resolution procedure, only a stronger and a weaker party.
Start here
Dwell, detention, active dwell — the four terms, from the regulator, and why detention is a residual rather than a measurement.
Why detention invoices go unpaid — 94.5% of carriers bill it and fewer than half get paid. The reasons are documentary.
The FMC billing rule, plainly — what 46 CFR Part 541 requires, what a court struck down in 2025, and the provision that still lets you refuse a bad invoice.
Yard time — the gap between the gate and the door, invisible in most systems, and where the disputed hour usually sits.
The five sections
Measuring time — definitions, timestamps, geofences, what an ELD does and does not record.
Billing — detention, demurrage, free time, accessorials and the thirty-day windows.
Operations — appointments, yard segments, hours-of-service, and the dock as a queue.
Evidence — the federal studies with their stated limitations, and how to read an industry survey.
Notes — positions, including one arguing against dashboards.
Federal sources are named and dated. Industry figures are labelled as self-reported with their year. Where a recommendation is reasoning rather than evidence, the article says so.
This domain belonged to the Northeast Alliance for Rail, a coalition of more than fifty business, civic and planning groups. Its 2010–2016 work is preserved here.