Truck detention at distribution centres and plants: how it is charged and how to avoid it

Short answer

Truck detention, called sobreestadía in Chile, is the time a truck spends at a distribution centre, plant or terminal beyond the free time agreed for loading or unloading, and the fee the carrier charges for that excess. It is avoided by measuring every stage of the truck's stay, from the gate to the exit, and acting before the free time runs out.

What truck detention is

When a carrier takes a load, it agrees with the shipper on a free time to load or unload. While the truck is within that free time, waiting is part of the service. Once it goes beyond it, the extra time is billed separately: that is detention. How much free time there is, when the clock starts and how much each extra hour costs is set by each contract.

Truck detention is not the same as container demurrage or container detention, which shipping lines charge for keeping a container beyond its free days. Both clocks can run on the same trip: the truck's clock at the site and the container's clock with the shipping line.

How detention charges are calculated

Three contract definitions change the result:

1. When the clock starts: when the truck arrives, at its appointment time, or when it checks in at the gate.
2. When it stops: when loading or unloading ends, when paperwork is handed over, or when the truck leaves through the gate.
3. How fractions are billed: in proportion to the time, or per hour started, where every fraction counts as a full hour.

It also matters what happens when a truck arrives before or after its time window, and which record counts as evidence when the parties disagree.

An example with assumed figures: a truck with two hours of free time that stays three hours and twenty minutes generates one hour and twenty minutes of detention. Billed in proportion, that is 1.33 hours at the contract rate; billed per hour started, it is 2 hours. To estimate the total for a site, use the detention calculator (in Spanish).

Why trucks get detained

We have deployed our technology in the field. When a site's operation is measured for the first time, these are the causes of waiting that show up, and the same pattern repeats across other physical operations:

1. Coordination by two-way radio. The yard supervisor can only attend to one person at a time, and every call on hold is a truck on hold.
2. Docks blocked by trucks whose drivers are not paying attention to the call.
3. Little control over staffing of forklift and machinery operators.
4. Peak seasons that the same docks and the same crew cannot absorb.

Other causes worth checking at any site:

1. Assigning docks without seeing the whole queue, which leaves docks idle while trucks wait.
2. Paperwork that is not ready when loading ends, such as the dispatch note.
3. Arrivals outside the time window, which disrupt the queue and open disputes over who pays.

Behind all of them there is one common cause: what happens between the gate and the exit is not recorded. And what is not recorded cannot be corrected or used to review a charge.

What detention really costs

The detention invoice is only the visible part. The rest of the cost never arrives on an invoice:

1. The blocked dock. While a truck overstays, the dock cannot serve the next one and the queue grows.
2. Overtime for the shift that runs long to dispatch what fell behind.
3. Missed delivery windows with your own customers, which can trigger SLA penalties.
4. Product exposed while it waits, for example to the sun, when the load is temperature sensitive.

A truck can spend up to two hours inside a distribution centre when the loading itself takes around thirty minutes. That gap is the margin that can be recovered.

There are official estimates of what waiting costs. In the United States, the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Transportation estimated in 2018 that a 15-minute increase in average dwell time, the total time a truck spends at a facility, increases the average expected crash rate by 6.2 percent. The same report associated detention with reductions in annual earnings of USD 1.1 billion to USD 1.3 billion for for-hire truckload drivers, and with USD 250.6 million to USD 302.9 million a year in lost net income for their carriers.

Detention in Chilean law

In Chile, free time and detention fees for trucks are agreed in the transport contract: the Commercial Code lets the waybill include any other agreements the parties make (article 175) and, if goods are not delivered on time and the carrier still performs the transport, requires the shipper to pay the extra costs caused by the delay (article 182). The legal definition of sobrestadía sits in the maritime chartering rules (article 954). Waiting time of interurban truck drivers is not counted as working time, is compensated as the parties agree on a calculation base no lower than the corresponding proportion of 1.5 monthly minimum wages, and cannot exceed 88 hours a month (article 25 bis of the Labour Code).

Seven ways to avoid truck detention

1. Measure each truck's stay by stage. Gate, waiting, dock, loading or unloading, paperwork, weighbridge and exit. Without the where, nobody knows who owns the improvement.
2. Write down in the contract how the clock runs. Start, stop, fraction billing, arrivals outside the window and which record counts as evidence.
3. Schedule arrivals with appointments and measure whether they are met. Scheduling flattens peaks; measuring the real wait shows whether the appointment worked.
4. Assign docks and forklifts with the whole queue in view, not one radio call at a time.
5. Have the load and the paperwork ready before the truck reaches the dock. A missing dispatch note holds the truck even after loading is done.
6. Act before the free time runs out. Set an alert threshold, for example when a truck has used 75 percent of its free time, with a clear owner to resolve it.
7. Reconcile every charge with your own record. Pay what is due, question what does not add up, and go after the cause that generates the most hours.

Tools that help

These approaches complement each other: appointments order the arrivals, and measuring the site shows what happens next.

How Trobac IT helps avoid truck detention

TroYard, by Trobac IT, is an operating system for physical operations. It records the stages of each truck's stay across the site's zones, shows in real time which truck is about to exceed its free time, and keeps an auditable, event-by-event record to reconcile every detention charge. It also sees what surrounds the truck: docks, forklifts, machinery and operators.

We bring our own hardware: we select, integrate and operate AI cameras and a range of sensors, without touching your systems or your network. Sites come online in days, not months. Trobac IT is based in Santiago, Chile. More in About Trobac IT.

Frequently asked questions

Is truck detention the same as container demurrage?

No. A shipping line charges demurrage when a container stays in the terminal beyond its free days, and container detention when it stays outside the terminal. Truck detention is the charge for the time a truck waits at a site beyond the free time for loading or unloading.

Who pays for truck detention?

The transport contract decides. The charge is billed to whoever contracted the service as agreed, and when there are differences the parties discuss who caused the delay: the site, the carrier or a third party. That is where a stage-by-stage record makes the difference.

What evidence do you need to review a detention charge?

A record with the time of each stage of the visit: arrival, gate check-in, dock assignment and occupancy, start and end of loading, paperwork and exit, together with the time window the truck had. That shows how much time there really was and in which stage it was generated.

Is dock scheduling enough to avoid detention?

Not on its own. Scheduling orders arrivals and flattens peaks, but detention is also generated inside the site: waiting for a dock, loading, paperwork or exit. Avoiding it requires measuring and coordinating what happens after the truck comes in.

How is detention related to Truck Round Time (TRT)?

TRT is the total time a truck spends inside the site. If the contract runs the clock gate to gate, each truck's detention is its TRT minus the free time, when the result is positive. That is why cutting TRT stage by stage is the most direct way to cut detention.

Sources

1. Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation, report ST2018019, Estimates Show Commercial Driver Detention Increases Crash Risks and Costs, but Current Data Limit Further Analysis, January 31, 2018: oig.dot.gov.
2. Chilean Commercial Code, articles 175, 182 and 954. Library of the National Congress of Chile: bcn.cl/leychile, idNorma 1974. Accessed September 14, 2026.
3. Chilean Labour Code, article 25 bis. Library of the National Congress of Chile: bcn.cl/leychile, idNorma 207436. Accessed September 14, 2026.