Detention isn't a surprise. It's a system we tolerate.

Detention, layover, TONU, lumper fees, redelivery, chassis split, port congestion surcharges. None of this is new. What’s new is how normal it’s become to treat accessorials as the cost of doing business instead of a controllable failure mode.

We’ve all seen the pattern: a clean rate confirmation goes out, a carrier runs the load, then an invoice lands with $250 here, $175 there, and suddenly margin is gone. The worst part is the debate takes longer than the load did. Somebody digs through emails for an appointment time, somebody else checks the BOL, the warehouse swears the truck was late, the driver says they were on time, and we end up paying just to make it go away.

Why accessorials keep happening (even in "good" networks)

This problem survives because the root causes sit in the cracks between systems and teams.

• Appointment data is unreliable: The real appointment time might live in a shipper portal, a receiver email thread, or a driver text. If our TMS has an outdated time window, every downstream decision is wrong.
• Check-in and check-out times are fuzzy: Many facilities still rely on guard shack notes, manual spreadsheets, or ELD pings that don’t match the dock door reality. When timestamps aren’t defensible, we can’t dispute confidently.
• Rate confirmations don’t carry enforceable rules: We send rate cons that mention detention after 2 hours, but don’t specify when the clock starts, what counts as arrival, or what documentation is required. That creates grey space, and grey space gets monetized.
• Operational incentives are misaligned: The warehouse is measured on throughput, transportation is measured on cost per mile, customer service is measured on on-time delivery. Detention sits in the middle and everyone can plausibly blame someone else.
• We treat accessorials as a back-office task: By the time accounting sees the charge, the people who could prevent it have already moved on to the next fire.

It keeps happening because we’re managing exceptions after the fact, not managing conditions before they exist.

The industry context: why this is getting more expensive

A few shifts are making accessorial leakage worse across the board.

• More volatility, tighter appointment discipline: Even when linehaul rates soften, docks haven’t magically become more fluid. One late inbound at a busy DC can cascade into missed appointments and rolling delays.
• Detention is a meaningful carrier revenue lever: For carriers and owner-ops, detention isn’t just a penalty, it’s compensation for unproductive time. With driver supply still tight in many lanes and insurance costs staying elevated, carriers push harder to collect what they’re owed.
• Facilities are running leaner: Many shippers and receivers trimmed labor. That shows up as longer dwell, especially during shift changes, end-of-month volume spikes, and peak retail waves.

FMCSA hours-of-service rules make this math brutal. Two to three hours of dwell can blow up a driver’s day, and when that happens, the charge stops being negotiable. It becomes the price of keeping capacity.

Most operations teams I talk to see detention on a meaningful slice of loads in certain networks, especially in live-load live-unload, grocery, and high-volume retail. Even a conservative average of $75 to $150 per affected load adds up fast at scale.

A practical path forward: make dwell measurable, then make it preventable

We don’t need a fancy transformation program. We need a tighter loop between planning, execution, and audit.

1) Define detention rules like you mean them

If our rate con says "detention after 2 hours," we should also define:

• Clock starts at: scheduled appointment time or check-in time?
• Arrival definition: geofence, guard check-in, or signed arrival?
• Required docs: in-and-out times on POD, facility stamp, ELD record?
• Escalation window: notify within 30 minutes of delay, or no detention?

This isn’t about being adversarial. It’s about removing ambiguity so good partners get paid fairly and bad invoices don’t slip through.

2) Capture timestamps at the source

Pick two timestamps and make them non-negotiable:

• Arrival/check-in
• Departure/check-out

If the facility can’t provide them reliably, we need a backup. That can be geofencing via ELD, a driver check-in workflow, or a yard management scan. The point is consistency.

3) Turn "detention" into an operational alert, not an accounting line

If a truck has been on site for 90 minutes of a 120-minute free time window, someone should know while we can still act.

That might mean calling the dock, moving the load to a drop trailer plan, rescheduling before a late fee hits, or reallocating labor. The win is preventing the charge, not negotiating it.

4) Close the loop with a weekly root-cause review

This is where teams actually get better.

Every week, take the top 10 detention and accessorial events and tag them:

• late appointment set
• carrier late arrival
• dock delay
• paperwork missing
• product not ready
• wrong trailer type
• port or chassis issue

Then do one thing: assign an owner and a preventive action for each category. Not a blame session. A fix list.

If we want help stitching data from rate confirmations, TMS events, and invoice backup into something auditable, tools like Debales.ai can reduce the manual chasing and speed up dispute decisions without turning the process into a full-time job.

What we can do this week (no new headcount required)

Here are moves that operators can implement in days, not quarters.

Tighten rate confirmation language for the next 20 loads

Update the template and enforce it. Add:

• detention start definition
• required documentation
• notification requirement

Even small clarity changes reduce arguments later.

Build a simple detention scoreboard

In a shared spreadsheet or BI view, track:

• detention dollars per load
• top 5 facilities by dwell
• top 5 carriers by frequency
• average dwell by mode (LTL, FTL, drayage)

If we can’t see it, we can’t manage it. If we can see it, we can usually cut it.

Put a 90-minute escalation rule in dispatch

If free time is 2 hours, dispatch escalates at 90 minutes. A quick call to the facility often works wonders, especially when the receiver knows we’re tracking dwell.

Pre-call high-risk facilities

We all know the usual suspects. For the next week, pre-call them 24 hours before appointment:

• confirm appointment time and reference numbers
• confirm product is staged
• confirm trailer type and load type (live vs drop)
• confirm lumper process and payment method

This prevents the most common avoidable delays.

Audit 10 recent accessorial invoices end-to-end

Pick 10 charges and trace them:

• What did the rate con say?
• What timestamp evidence existed?
• Who was notified, and when?
• Did we have a chance to prevent it?

You’ll usually find one recurring failure you can fix immediately.

The perspective shift that changes everything

In our industry, we love to argue about rates. But detention and accessorials are often the bigger margin leak because they’re quiet, frequent, and normalized.

If we start treating dwell like a controllable production defect instead of a billing dispute, we don’t just save fees. We protect capacity, improve on-time performance, and make our network easier to run. That’s the kind of operational advantage nobody can copy with a cheaper rate per mile.