Northeast Freight Time one clock, four readings

Where the Statistics Come From

Every figure in freight comes from one of five places. They differ enormously in what they can support, and in retelling the distinction is lost within about two hops. For another workplace-measurement reference, accountability and responsibility in the workplace.

The five

Federal audits and agency research. DOT Office of Inspector General, FMCSA studies, Federal Maritime Commission rulemaking records. Independent of industry, methods published, and usually the strongest evidence available. Also slow, occasionally old, and limited to what an agency has jurisdiction to examine. For complementary transport data and research, see DC Velocity.

Government statistics. Bureau of Labor Statistics on earnings and employment, Bureau of Transportation Statistics on volumes. Rigorous, and about the economy rather than about your dock. BLS put average hourly earnings in truck transportation at $32.41 as of April 2026 — that is a real number and it does not tell you what an idle hour costs a carrier.

Industry research organisations. ATRI is the serious one in trucking. Methods described, samples real, and the data is largely self-reported by members with a position. Better than most of what circulates and not equivalent to an audit.

Trade press and association surveys. Widely quoted, methods often thin, response rates rarely stated. Useful for direction and sentiment.

And vendor content. Software companies, brokerages, factoring firms. Frequently the most readable and the most confidently stated. Sometimes it contains original data, usually from the vendor's own customer base, which is a specific population selected by having bought that product.

How to tell them apart in the wild

Follow the number back two hops. Most figures in a blog post cite another blog post. Keep going until you reach an agency, a research organisation or nothing — and it is nothing more often than people expect.

Look for the method. Federal and ATRI work states its sample. Vendor content rarely does.

Check whether the year travels with the number. Rates and congestion move annually. A figure quoted without its year has usually been recycled several times.

And ask who benefits from the conclusion. Not to dismiss — to weight. A vendor finding that dwell is expensive is a real finding by an interested party.

What each is good for

Federal sources for argument. In a room where it matters, a DOT audit outranks everything else. Use them when you need the claim to hold up.

Government statistics for context. Wages, volumes, fuel. Never for operational benchmarks.

Industry research for direction. Reefer worse than dry van, small fleets worse than large, seasonal congestion — robust across sources and not precise in any of them.

Trade press for what people are worried about, which is genuinely useful and is not evidence.

Vendor content for the mechanics. A software company explaining how demurrage is calculated is often the clearest explanation available. Take the mechanism, verify the numbers elsewhere.

The gap nobody fills

Nobody publishes operational data by facility, and nobody will, because it is commercially sensitive and legally awkward.

So there is no benchmark for the question people actually have: is my dwell normal for this kind of facility? National averages blend everything, and they are self-reported against an undefined term.

Which is why your own measurement is not a poor substitute for published data. It is the only data that exists about your operation, and a week of four timestamps produces more usable information than any survey.

The rule to keep

Federal for argument, industry for direction, your own for decisions.

Anyone quoting a precise industry-wide figure about detention is quoting past what the regulator itself says is known, and that is a short sentence worth having available.

The short version