If you’re a trucker, one of the most frustrating things that can happen while you’re on the road is getting your truck detained while you’re loading. It can be even more frustrating when you feel like there’s nothing you can do to stop the process.
While you may not be able to stop it, there are ways you can reduce the detention time so that it decreases the delay. With that in mind, here are several important tips on how to do that.
What Is Truck Detention?
If you manage a trucking business, detention is something you have to prepare for. Some miscalculation is bound to happen at some point, and the loading time for your truck may go beyond the initial projection. Free time varies across companies, but two hours is a good average to work with. Once the time goes over this, it starts being charged as extra.
Your driver is supposed to be working on a schedule, and there are stops along the way that your driver needs to arrive at on time. Any additional idle time will add to your driver’s work hours as detention time, and you’ll need to figure out detention pay rates for your drivers and agree on it in advance. Then you can go ahead and put measures in place to try and avoid detention as much as possible.
Have Your Cargo Pre-cleared
Pre-clearing your delivery instructions and cargo with your carrier can go a long way in helping to prevent detention times. The better your trucker knows in advance what to expect, the more efficient the loading or unloading is likely to go.
Always Have A Plan B
Communicate with your shipper to make sure there is a plan B in place to ensure that the loading of the truck is done within the average two-hour threshold. The backup plan could be something as simple as using a different door or separate dock to expedite loading time.
Request For An Extension Of Free Time
The only way free time can be extended by a distributor or a carrier is if large volumes of cargo are being transported. In this case, the amount of cargo on board will be enough to cover as well as justify the delay.
Be Early
At the root of truck detention lies a planning problem, so you should try to send your freight early, but within a reasonable time. Your freight shouldn’t arrive too early, as this will still count as wasted time if the truck has to wait and be loaded or unloaded later. Eliminate all the humps along the way that might be contributing to your trucks being late and your business losing money.
Negotiate Better Rates With Your Shipper
If you expect that a certain load will take longer than two hours to unload, then it’s better to negotiate for the shipper to pay more to cover the charges that come with detention. This won’t necessarily reduce your truck’s detention time, but anticipating it and planning for it reduces the potential financial impact that the detention might cause.
Schedule With Detention In Mind
When you create your traveling and docking schedule, ensure that you are already considering potential detention time so that your work schedule isn’t thrown that far off should truck detention happen.
Stagger Pick-Up Times And Ship Directly To Consumer
Shippers should consider staggering their pick-up schedule to avoid having a fleet of trucks waiting to pick up their loads at the same time. This ensures that when a truck arrives, it won’t have to wait too long before loading starts.
By staggering pick-up times, you also avoid having one or two peaks during the day, while the rest of the day has just a few or even no trucks at the dock. By creating a staggered schedule, you get to spread out your traffic throughout the day and make it manageable.
If traffic at your facility is still a problem at this point, then you might need to consider cross-docking or need-based order fulfillment to try and eliminate detention time. So, where possible, try to ship directly to the client to avoid unnecessary traffic at your facility.
Set Up A Drop-And-Hook Program
Another very effective way to reduce detention time is by implementing a drop-and-hook program, where a driver simply arrives at the dock, finds a preloaded trailer, and drops his empty trailer to take the preloaded one. You might not eliminate detention costs this way, but you’re likely to limit them to manageable figures.
Hire More Staff
Sometimes it isn’t just about adjusting times at the facility or the drivers; it could also be a good idea for the facility where your trucks load their cargo to consider increasing the number of people who are loading a vehicle at a time. The more people there are, the quicker a load can be finished, and the driver can be back on the road sooner.
Conclusion
Your drivers are trying to make as much money as they can, so detention time is just a cut into their profits. They will charge you for it, which will then cut into your business’s profits. Detention time can cost you a lot of money if you don’t do something about it, so taking measures to reduce it can help you cut down on costs.
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