DC Velocity - August 2016

More than 60 percent of commercial truck drivers are forced to wait longer than expected at a freight dock while their trailers are loaded or unloaded, wasting precious travel time and causing friction in the trucking supply chain, according to a survey released last month by an industry consultancy.

The survey, conducted by Portland, Ore.-based DAT Solutions LLC, also found a disconnect between the impact of “driver detention” on motor carriers and on the freight brokers who tender loads to carriers on behalf of their shipper customers. Of 257 motor carriers surveyed, 84 percent said driver detention was one of the top five problems they faced. By contrast, of the 50 freight brokers responding, just 20 percent said detention was among the top five of their daily headaches.

According to the survey, 54 percent of drivers said they regularly wait between three and four hours for the work to be finished, while 9 percent said it’s typical to wait as long as five hours. Only 3 percent of carriers responding said their drivers were reimbursed on the bulk of their detention claims. More than half said they were paid at no more than $30 an hour for waiting beyond the normal two-hour free grace period that a carrier grants a shipper or consignee to load or unload the trailer. It is rare for carriers to be paid at an hourly rate of more than $50, the study found. Current reimbursement levels are inadequate to cover a driver’s opportunity costs of missing out on future loads while being delayed at a dock, according to the survey.

About two-thirds of brokers said they
paid drivers for lost time only when
they collected detention fees from the
shipper or consignee. The remaining
one-third paid detention fees after driv-
ers complained. However, detention
was an issue that carriers only “some-
times” complained about, the brokers
said, adding that the carrier complaints
centered on the actions of a few
shippers, not most of them.

The survey did not address whether drivers are detained more frequently at a shipper’s or a receiver’s dock, though it is believed that detention is a problem at both. The survey also did not determine whether the problem was more prevalent among truckload or less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, or among small or large fleets.

“THE BIGGEST INEFFICIENCY IN TRUCKING”

Don Thornton, senior vice presi-
dent at DAT, called driver detention
an “urgent issue” that shippers and
consignees need to put at the top of
their priority lists. “Many shippers
and receivers are lax about their
dock operations, but it’s the carriers
and drivers who are forced to pay
for that inefficiency,” Thornton said
in a statement.

Norita Taylor, a spokeswoman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), said that dock delays are a serious problem for drivers because they are paid only when their wheels are turning and are already subject to daily caps on their drive times. The basic structure of driver pay means that users of trucking services have no motivation to improve the situation, Taylor added. “Because drivers are not paid for their