Commercial truck driver detention, the extra time that truckers wait at shipping and receiving facilities due to delays unrelated to loading and unloading, is always a topic of discussion in the trucking industry – and for good reason.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced earlier this year its plans to conduct a new driver detention time study entitled the Impact of Driver Detention Time on Safety and Operations. In this blog, you’ll learn more about the impact of driver detention time, why the FMCSA is conducting a new driver detention study, how the study will work and about the primary objectives of the study.
Why a New FMCSA Detention Time Study Is Needed
A 2014 study conducted by the FMCSA found that commercial motor vehicle drivers on average were detained beyond the industry standard two-hour time frame on 10 percent of their stops. When truckers were detained for more than two hours, the study found that their average total detention time was nearly three and a half hours and that medium-sized carriers experienced detention twice as often as large carriers.
A 2018 OIG study found that detention time reduces truckers’ annual earnings by more than $1 billion. The OIG study also revealed that just a 15-minute increase in detention time increases commercial truck crash rates by more than six percent and that each one-minute reduction in average detention time would prevent more than 400 truck accidents annually.
Both of these previous detention-focused studies estimated overall wait times but did not differentiate between “normal” loading and unloading times under typical schedules and detention time that actually disrupts and delays a driver’s schedule and/or on-duty time. The new FMCSA detention time study being conducted will address this gap in knowledge and is expected to produce more meaningful results than previous detention studies.
The Goals of the FMCSA’s New Detention Study
According to the FMCSA, the new driver detention study will “collect data on commercial motor vehicle (CMV) driver detention time representative of the major segments of the motor carrier industry, analyze that data to determine the frequency and severity of detention time, and assess the utility of existing intelligent transportation systems (ITS) solutions to measure detention time.”
With these three areas of focus — collection of representative detention data, analysis of frequency and severity, and assessment of technology used to measure detention — the FMCSA hopes to better understand the impacts of detention on safety and carrier operations and to create best practice strategies to reduce detention.
How the FMCSA’s Detention Study Will Be Conducted
The FMCSA study will include 80 carriers and 2,500 commercial truckers. Drivers and carriers chosen for the study will collect and provide 12 months of detention data to the FMCSA. It’s worth noting that the study’s sample will include long-haul, short-haul, private/company, for-hire and port-servicing carriers, as well as owner operators, hourly and mileage-based operators, truckload, less-than-truckload and dedicated local delivery carriers. This broad sample of carriers represents a more diverse and larger sample size than used in previous detention studies, which tended to focus on mostly larger carriers. In contrast, the sample of carriers used in this new study is representative of U.S. motor carriers.
The FMCSA detention study will include data collection via electronic logging devices (ELDs), transportation management systems (TMSs), vehicle telematic systems, safety records, and answers to survey questions delivered through carrier dispatching systems. While carriers will primarily be selected from the approximately 3,000 SpeedGauge clients in the Driven Data Clearinghouse, carriers who express interest in participating in the study may also be included in the study sample. Carriers included in the study will range from single vehicle owner-operators to carriers with hundreds of trucks.
As part of the FMCSA detention time study, multiple data analyses will be performed once data collection is complete. Analyses will assess relationships between detention time and carrier, facility and driver schedule characteristics, as well as number of detained stops per shift and duration of detention. Other analyses will focus on detention time and safety outcomes and the cost per year associated with detention time, including lost productivity, supply chain disruptions, and increases in fatal, injury and property-damage-only crashes.
The FMCSA’s Truck Driver Detention Study’s Primary Objectives
Based on comments from the public, the FMCSA’s primary objectives for the study include a better understanding of driver detention time and its relation to the following issues: driver pay, organizational issues, hours of service regulations, the industry and broader economy, driver welfare, and driver and roadway safety.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the primary objectives of the FMCSA’s new detention study.
Relationship Between Detention Time and Driver Compensation
Two-thirds of the public comments recently submitted to the FMCSA on the subject of detention centered on the relationship between detention and driver compensation. With this new study, the FMCSA hopes to gain deeper insight into precisely how detention impacts driver pay and to what extent, as well as the efficacy of detention-specific driver compensation.
Organizational Issues at the Shipper, Receiver, Carrier and/or Broker Levels
Another primary objective of the FMCSA’s detention time study is to better understand organizational issues that occur at the shipper/receiver, carrier and/or broker levels. These include inefficiencies at shipper/receiver locations that increase detention time, such as understaffed facilities, difficult driver check-in procedures, products being processed at loading, not honoring appointment times, lack of room in storage facilities, appointment times scheduled during staff shift changes or breaks, and the overloading of commercial vehicles.
Relationship Between Detention Time and Hours of Service Regulations
With the Impact of Driver Detention Time on Safety and Operations study, the FMCSA also seeks a deeper understanding of how driver detention impacts adherence to hours-of-service (HOS) regulations. The study will capture and analyze data on drive time, work time, and HOS-related violations through ELD data and driver self reports via prompted electronic questions. Data on activity while the vehicle is at a delivery pickup location being detained will also be collected and analyzed relative to off-duty status.
Impact of Detention Time on Industry and Economy
Another primary objective of the study is to better understand the impact of detention time on industry earnings and society as a whole. The study will investigate the cost of driver detention in terms of lost productivity and disruptions to the broader supply chain. This includes the relationships between driver detention and operational efficiency, quality of goods, fuel usage and additional appointment scheduling.
Impact of Detention Time on Driver Welfare
The FMCSA received 66 comments from the public about the impact of detention time on driver welfare. Truckers who are detained often find themselves unexpectedly needing to complete their deliveries at night and/or without access to essential facilities, thereby compounding stress, frustration and fatigue for drivers. The relationship between driver welfare and detention is beyond the scope of the FMCSA’s detention study but may be examined by the FMCSA in a follow-up study.
Impact of Detention Time on Driver and Roadway Safety
The final primary objective of the FMCSA’s Impact of Driver Detention Time on Safety and Operations study is to investigate how detention time affects driver safety and general road safety. When truckers are detained at shipper or receiver facilities, they may feel pressure to speed or drive more aggressively to meet delivery schedules. The study will examine the relationship between detention and safety by analyzing insurance claims and federal crash, telematics, and driver self-reported data.
To learn more about the FMCSA’s Impact of Driver Detention Time on Safety and Operations study, visit https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/research-and-analysis/impact-driver-detention-time-safety-and-operations.