FreightWaves Research Institute announces ‘War on Detention’ pledge

The FreightWaves Research Institute, in conjunction with industry partners, universities and technology vendors announces the “War on Detention Pledge” – a promise for companies involved in the freight transportation ecosystem to develop and advance research, initiatives and best practices to mitigate uncompensated asset and driver detention.

“Uncompensated detention is one of the biggest travesties in the industry that plagues our driver community, cost trucking fleets billions, and cause unnecessary costs to society,” Arlen Stark, EVP of the FreightWaves Research Institute stated. “By bringing industry participants, trade associations and major research universities together, we plan to use data to research the cause, cost and develop best practices to mitigate uncompensated detention from our industry.”

According to electronic logging device (ELD) data that FreightWaves has accumulated from technology partners across the industry, drivers are in uncompensated detention for seven hours per week, costing trucking fleets as much as $560 per truck/week or nearly $28,000 per year. Across the trucking industry, the bill could be as high as $25 billion in lost productivity and economic opportunity.

Uncompensated detention is also one of the fundamental reasons for driver turnover, and also contributes greatly to reducing the quality of life for many drivers. “If we want to solve the driver shortage, or mitigate the growing gap between demand and labor supply and protect public safety, we must find ways to end unnecessary wait-time at shippers which contributes to frustration and fatigue,” Craig Fuller, CEO of FreightWaves stated.