Northeast Freight Time one clock, four readings

Which Timestamp Is Authoritative

A visit generates several timestamps, from several systems, none of which is the truth. Each is an accurate record of a different event, and a dispute is resolved by whichever pair the contract named — or, if it named none, by whoever has the better record. For a software-oriented reference on recording work time, this walkthrough.

The six moments

Geofence entry. Vehicle crosses a radius somebody drew. May include the street, the neighbouring lot, or a queue two hundred metres away. For broader transportation and measurement context, see MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics.

Gate arrival. Truck reaches the gate. Recorded by a camera, a guard, or nothing.

Check-in. Driver is entered into the yard system. Only happens when there is capacity to process them, which is why it is the facility's preferred start and the carrier's least favourite.

Door assignment. A door is allocated. Frequently recorded and rarely shared.

Load start. Work begins.

Departure. Trailer closed, or paperwork signed, or gate-out. Three different moments, often an hour apart at a large site.

Why "arrival" is not a timestamp

It is an interpretation. Arrival at the property, at the gate, at the queue, at the desk — four defensible readings, and a contract saying "two hours from arrival" has specified nothing.

A timestamp is an event a system recorded. If you cannot name the system and the event, you have named a concept.

That distinction is the practical core of this page: every dispute in this category is downstream of a contract that named a concept instead of an event.

Choosing the pair

Three properties make a pair usable.

Both parties can see it. A record only one side holds will be contested, and correctly.

It is machine-generated. Gate systems, geofences and ELD location records beat a note or a message, not because people lie but because memory and typing are lossy.

And it is close to the thing being paid for. Detention is meant to compensate for the vehicle being held. Gate-in to gate-out is the closest cheap proxy; check-in to load complete systematically undercounts by however long the yard takes.

The workable default: gate-in to gate-out, with free time running from gate-in or from appointment time, whichever is later.

That last clause matters. It prevents an early arrival from starting the clock, which is the single most common disagreement in the whole subject and is settled by nine words.

What to do when the systems disagree

They will, by minutes normally and by more than an hour occasionally.

Name a tie-breaker in the contract. Where records differ by more than fifteen minutes, the facility's gate record governs. Or the carrier's. It matters far less which than that one is named.

State what happens when a record is missing. A gate camera down for a day should not mean an unbillable or unchallengeable claim. Where the primary record is unavailable, the secondary source governs.

And define the tolerance. Below it, nobody argues. Fifteen minutes is a common and sensible figure.

Three sentences, and they remove most of what the industry currently litigates one load at a time.

Clock drift and time zones

Unglamorous and it produces real disputes.

Systems disagree on the clock itself. A yard system a few minutes off, a phone on network time, a truck device on GPS time. Over a two-hour threshold a five-minute drift decides whether a charge exists at all.

Time zones near boundaries. A load crossing a zone, or a facility whose system reports local while the carrier's reports UTC. Specify the zone in the contract and require timestamps to carry it.

And daylight saving transitions, which produce an hour that happens twice or not at all. Rare, and it lands in a dispute every spring and autumn.

What to record if you have no system

A clipboard works. Gate-in time, check-in time, load start, gate-out, initialled by the driver and the gate.

Four times on paper, kept consistently, is better evidence than a sophisticated system nobody has agreed to share — and it is also the cheapest way to find out where your yard time goes.

The short version