Detention
Time a carrier's driver and equipment are held beyond the agreed free time at a shipper or receiver's facility, typically billed at an hourly rate.
How it works — and why it matters
A typical contract grants a facility two free hours to load or unload; after that, detention accrues at a negotiated hourly rate. The dispute is usually about proof — carriers need timestamped evidence of when the driver arrived and left, which is why geofenced arrival and departure events from ELD or telematics data have become the standard record.
Detention matters beyond the invoice: every hour a driver sits is an hour of legal driving time lost under hours-of-service rules, which cascades into missed appointments and repowered loads. Facilities with chronic detention get scored, priced, or avoided accordingly by carriers.