Accessorial Charges in Trucking: Revenue Your Fleet Has Already Earned and Not Collected

There is a category of revenue that every mid-size trucking fleet has already earned, that their drivers already worked for, and that the majority of them are not fully collecting. It does not require new freight, new customers, or better rates. It requires billing for work that has already been done and following through until payment arrives.

Accessorial charges, the fees carriers levy for detention, truck order not used, lumper reimbursement, layover, and additional stops, are standard operating expenses that shippers and brokers contractually owe carriers for specific events. They are not optional extras or favors. They are compensation for real costs incurred and real time spent. Yet according to research published by the American Transportation Research Institute in 2024, while 94.5 percent of fleets charge detention fees, they collect on fewer than 50 percent of the invoices they submit. The trucking industry lost $3.6 billion in direct expenses from uncompensated detention alone in 2023, on top of $11.5 billion in lost driver productivity.

For a mid-size fleet running 30 trucks, the gap between what accessorial revenue the operation is owed and what it actually collects is a specific, calculable number. For most fleets in this size range, that number is in the range of $80,000 to $180,000 per year. This article builds that calculation, identifies why the gap exists, and explains what closing it actually requires operationally.

What Accessorial Charges Are and Why They Are Owed

Accessorial charges are fees applied to a freight invoice for services or circumstances beyond the standard point-to-point transportation of a load. They exist because the base linehaul rate quoted on a rate confirmation covers one thing: moving freight from origin to destination within normal operating parameters. When real-world freight operations deviate from those parameters, through delays at facilities, load cancellations, unloading assistance, or overnight stays, the additional cost falls on the carrier unless it is explicitly invoiced and collected.

The major accessorial categories that mid-size dry van and refrigerated carriers encounter regularly are detention, TONU, lumper reimbursement, layover, and additional stop charges. Understanding each from the fleet director's perspective, not the broker's or shipper's, is what turns this from a definitions exercise into a revenue analysis.

Detention is the fee charged when a driver waits at a shipper or receiver facility beyond the standard two free hours for loading or unloading. The clock starts at the scheduled appointment time or the time the driver checks in, depending on what the rate confirmation specifies. Detention rates for dry van operations typically run $25 to $75 per hour, while specialized or reefer operations command rates at the higher end of that range and above. The ATRI research covering 2023 data found that detention occurs at 39.3 percent of all stops, with 9.9 percent of all stops resulting in detention beyond the two-hour billable threshold. Drivers reported being detained between 117 and 209 hours per year depending on the freight sector.

TONU, or Truck Order Not Used, is the fee charged when a carrier commits a truck to a load and the load is subsequently canceled after the driver has begun active work on the assignment. The standard rate runs $150 to $250 per incident. The eligibility threshold varies: most industry conventions hold that TONU is owed when a driver is actively en route to the pickup or has arrived at the facility, not when the cancellation occurs before the driver has begun work. The key variable is documentation proving the driver's status at the time of cancellation.

Lumper reimbursement is not a carrier fee in the traditional sense. It is a pass-through cost recovery. When a receiver uses third-party labor to unload a truck and the driver pays the lumper directly out of pocket, the carrier is entitled to full reimbursement from the broker or shipper. Lumper fees range from $75 to $600 depending on the work involved, with the average at approximately $300. When a driver pays a lumper and the carrier does not recover that cost, it is a direct dollar-for-dollar operating loss.

Layover pay applies when a delay pushes a driver's assignment into the following day, causing them to lose an entire day of productivity that cannot be recovered. Layover rates typically run $200 to $500 per day and are distinct from detention, which compensates for hours. Layover compensates for the day.

Additional stop charges apply when a load requires a driver to make more stops than the rate confirmation originally specified. These typically run $50 to $100 per unplanned stop and are often the most commonly forgotten accessorial category in mid-size fleet billing processes.

The Revenue Calculation for a 30-Truck Fleet

The ATRI data provides the inputs needed to build a realistic detention revenue calculation for a specific fleet size. The calculation below uses conservative assumptions throughout and labels illustrative math where primary research data ends and reasonable estimation begins.

A 30-truck fleet running one load per day per truck averages approximately 210 loads per week. Each load typically involves two stops, a pickup and a delivery, producing approximately 420 facility stops per week. ATRI's documented detention frequency of 9.9 percent of all stops exceeding the two-hour billable threshold means the fleet is generating approximately 41.6 billable detention events per week. At the industry average detention rate of $63 per hour, which ATRI documents as the rate most carriers actually charge shippers, and at a conservative average of 1.5 hours of excess detention per billable event, each detention event generates approximately $94.50 in invoiced revenue.

At 41.6 billable events per week at $94.50 each, weekly invoiced detention revenue totals approximately $3,931. Annualized, the fleet generates approximately $204,400 in detention invoices per year.

At the ATRI-documented collection rate of fewer than 50 percent of invoices actually paid, the fleet collects approximately $102,200 per year and absorbs $102,200 in uncollected detention annually.

TONU charges on a fleet of this size are harder to estimate with precision because cancellation frequency varies significantly by broker network and freight mix. A conservative assumption of two TONU events per week at $200 each produces $400 in weekly invoiced TONU revenue, or approximately $20,800 annually. If the fleet collects on 40 percent of those invoices due to documentation and timing disputes, it recovers $8,320 and absorbs $12,480 in uncollected TONU.

Lumper reimbursement on a fleet serving distribution and retail freight depends entirely on how many loads involve third-party unloading. For a fleet where 15 percent of loads involve a lumper at an average of $300, that is approximately 31 lumper events per week, or approximately $487,500 in annual lumper costs flowing through drivers. If the fleet has a systematic receipt collection and billing process, most of this is recovered. If lumper receipts are inconsistently collected from drivers and inconsistently billed to brokers, an estimated 20 to 25 percent of that amount, or $97,500 to $121,875, is absorbed as an operating cost rather than recovered as revenue.

Combined across the three primary categories at conservative assumptions, a 30-truck fleet is absorbing between $212,000 and $236,000 per year in legitimately owed accessorial revenue that it has not collected. The floor on that figure, using the most conservative estimate at the ATRI collection rate, is approximately $112,000. The ceiling for a fleet with serious documentation and billing gaps is considerably higher.

This is not speculative. Every dollar in that range has a driver behind it who waited, or committed to a load that was canceled, or paid a lumper out of pocket. The work was done. The clock ran. The receipt exists. The collection is the problem, not the entitlement.

Why Most Mid-Size Fleets Are Not Collecting What They Are Owed

The gap between billed accessorials and collected accessorials is not primarily a negotiation problem. Most of it comes from three structural operational failures that are entirely within a fleet director's control to fix.

Failure 1: Documentation Does Not Happen at the Right Time

The strongest accessorial claims are built at the facility, not in the office two days later. A driver who checks in at a shipper at 10:05 AM for a 10:30 AM appointment and is still waiting at 12:45 PM has a completely documentable detention claim: timestamped gate check-in, a two-hour clock that started at 10:30, and 1 hour 15 minutes of billable time. If that driver notifies dispatch at the 12:30 mark and takes a timestamped photo of the dock situation and the BOL, the claim is bulletproof.

What most drivers actually do is note the wait time mentally, finish the load, and mention it in passing when they call in. By the time a dispatcher tries to file a detention claim 36 hours later based on a driver's verbal recollection, the broker's response is predictable: prove it, provide check-in timestamps, show the appointment confirmation, and demonstrate when the 2-hour clock started. Without the documentation created at the facility in real time, the claim is disputable and often abandoned.

ATRI's own finding that most carriers do not track the amount of true detention time at each stop, despite having ELD GPS data that would allow them to, describes the core of the problem precisely. The data to support detention claims exists in many cases. The process for capturing and connecting it to billing does not.

Failure 2: Billing Is Inconsistent and Slow

An accessorial claim submitted within 24 hours of delivery with full documentation is substantially more likely to be paid than one submitted five days later after the broker has moved on to the next hundred loads. The urgency to collect on a $94.50 detention invoice feels low to a dispatcher managing 30 trucks and 210 weekly loads. The aggregate urgency across all 41.6 weekly detention events is $3,931 per week. Compounded over a year, the administrative delay that makes late claims easier for brokers to dispute or deny is worth $102,200 to the fleet.

This is compounded by the fact that many mid-size fleets do not have a dedicated billing function. The same dispatcher who is managing driver communication, load assignments, and problem resolution throughout the day is also supposed to track detention events, confirm layover eligibility, verify TONU timing, and submit accessorial invoices. When the operational pressure is high, the billing falls behind. The revenue that was already earned disappears into administrative backlog.

Failure 3: Relationship Fear Produces Revenue Avoidance

The most honest explanation for why carriers at even sophisticated mid-size operations do not aggressively bill accessorials is that they are afraid of losing broker relationships. The logic is understandable: a broker who books $40,000 of freight per month is a relationship worth protecting, and disputing a $94.50 detention claim does not seem worth the friction.

That calculation is financially incorrect for two reasons. First, the $94.50 detention claim is money the carrier has already earned. Declining to collect it is not maintaining a relationship. It is subsidizing the broker's ability to understate their own costs to the shipper. Second, the pattern of not billing accessorials accumulates. A fleet that consistently does not invoice detention becomes known in the broker network as a carrier that absorbs these costs quietly. That reputation produces more loads at the expense of more uncollected accessorials, not a more productive partnership.

The more effective approach is systematic billing delivered professionally, not aggressively. A fleet that submits well-documented detention invoices consistently, without drama or dispute, trains its broker network that accessorial charges are a standard part of doing business with that carrier. Brokers who work with organized carriers on accessorials do not stop giving them freight. They build the accessorial cost into their shipper quotes and stop arguing about invoices they know are accurate.

How direct shipper relationships change your leverage on accessorial terms is relevant here for a specific reason. Direct shipper contracts allow carriers to specify accessorial terms in the master service agreement rather than on individual rate confirmations. A carrier with a direct shipper agreement that explicitly defines the two-hour detention clock, the hourly rate, and the documentation requirements has a contractual baseline for collection that spot broker loads rarely provide. Carriers who work primarily through brokers are always negotiating accessorial terms on a load-by-load basis, which structurally favors the broker at collection time.

What Systematic Accessorial Collection Actually Requires

Closing the collection gap does not require a technology platform or a new department. It requires three operational changes that can be implemented by any fleet with existing ELD and telematics infrastructure.

A documented driver protocol for every detention event. When a driver's wait time approaches two hours, the dispatch system should automatically trigger a notification and a documentation request. The driver takes a timestamped photo of the check-in record or gate stamp, notates the BOL with the time in and the appointment time, and sends a dispatch notification confirming the detention clock has started. This creates a contemporaneous evidence trail that supports the invoice and removes the post-delivery reconstruction problem entirely. ELD timestamp data provides a corroborating record of when the truck arrived and when it departed, which is hard for a broker to dispute.

Rate confirmation language that specifies terms before the load moves. A dispatcher who books a load without accessorial terms on the rate confirmation is starting with a disadvantage. Detention terms, TONU eligibility timing, and lumper reimbursement procedures should be confirmed in writing on every rate confirmation before the driver heads to the pickup. The HoraExpress detention analysis documents this precisely: once the load is accepted without accessorial terms, leverage disappears. The carrier has accepted the load and the broker knows the truck is committed.

A billing cycle that submits accessorial invoices within 24 to 48 hours of delivery. One designated person or process in the fleet's back office should review completed loads daily for accessorial events, confirm documentation is complete, and submit invoices with the supporting documentation attached. Establishing this as a 24-to-48-hour standard, rather than a weekly catch-up exercise, produces materially higher collection rates because it maintains the broker's awareness of the load's recent history and reduces the window for dispute.

How accessorial revenue fits into your true cost per mile matters here because accessorial collection is the rare opportunity to improve net revenue per mile without changing lanes, rates, or freight mix. A 30-truck fleet that recovers an additional $100,000 per year in previously uncollected detention across 3 million combined annual miles is improving its net revenue per mile by $0.033. On a fleet running at a $2.10 average revenue rate, that is a 1.6 percent net margin improvement from billing discipline alone.

Why driver pay structure affects how drivers document delays is directly connected to accessorial collection. Drivers on CPM pay have a financial disincentive to wait and document detention properly, because the time spent waiting generates no miles and therefore no pay. Drivers who are not compensated for detention time personally have less motivation to go through the documentation process that benefits the fleet. A fleet that compensates drivers for detention events with a share of the collected detention pay, or that has structured pay to include non-driving compensation, produces better documentation behavior and therefore higher fleet-level collection rates.

For fleet directors who want to understand what billing and operations support looks like at their fleet size, fleet services for mid-size carriers is a starting point for that conversation.

The Number That Should Change How You Think About Accessorials

ATRI's C.R. England CEO quote in their 2024 detention report is the most useful summary of where most of the industry stands on this issue: "Detention is so common that many industry professionals have accepted it as inevitable without realizing the true extent of its costs."

Acceptance of uncollected accessorials as an inevitable background cost is the most expensive operational habit a mid-size fleet can have. It is expensive not because the per-event amount is large, but because the frequency is high, the cause is structural rather than random, and the fix is administrative rather than commercial.

A fleet that implements driver documentation protocols, rate confirmation language standards, and a 24-to-48-hour billing cycle will not immediately collect on 100 percent of its accessorial invoices. Shippers dispute claims, brokers push back, and some events will remain uncollected regardless of documentation quality. But moving from the industry average of sub-50 percent collection toward 70 or 75 percent collection on a 30-truck fleet is worth $51,000 to $76,500 per year in recovered detention revenue alone, before TONU and lumper recovery are factored in.

That is not a theoretical improvement. It is arithmetic applied to ATRI's published data and the documented collection gap that the industry itself has quantified. The work has already been done. The question is whether the billing follows it.

Sources

1. American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). Costs and Consequences of Truck Driver Detention: A Comprehensive Analysis. September 2024. truckingresearch.org
   
   
2. Heavy Duty Trucking / TruckingInfo. Truck Driver Detention Study Shows Some Improvement. September 2024. truckinginfo.com
   
   
3. ABL Trucking. The Real Cost of Driver Detention: What the Data Tells Us (2018-2025). June 2025. abltrucking.com
   
   
4. DAT Freight and Analytics. Trucker Detention Is Still a $15 Billion Problem. October 2024. dat.com
   
   
5. O Trucking. What Is Detention Pay? Trucking Detention Time Guide 2026. March 2026. otrucking.com
   
   
6. Transport Topics. ATRI Finds Truck Drivers Detained on 39% of Deliveries. September 2024. ttnews.com
   
   
7. Inbound Logistics. Understanding the Impact of Truck Driver Detention. September 2024. inboundlogistics.com
   
   
8. PrePass Safety Alliance. Addressing the Ongoing Problem of Driver Detention. September 2024. prepassalliance.org
   
   
9. HoraExpress. Accessorial Pay Explained: Detention, Layover, TONU, Stop-Offs, and Tarp Pay. March 2026. horaexpress.com
   
   
10. Denim. 6 Accessorial Charges Every Freight Broker Should Know. denim.com
    
    
11. Freight 360. What Are Accessorial Charges in Truckload Transportation? freight360.net
    
    
12. DataDocks. Settling Driver Detention Disputes Once and For All. March 2026. datadocks.com
    
    
13. Millennials Trucking. Cost Per Mile (CPM) for Trucking: How to Calculate It (with Examples). millennialstrucking.com
    
    
14. Millennials Trucking. Driver Pay Structures: How CPM, Percentage, and Salary Affect Your Fleet's Bottom Line. millennialstrucking.com
    
    
15. Millennials Trucking. Freight Broker vs. Direct Shipper: What the Right Customer Mix Looks Like for a Mid-Size Carrier. millennialstrucking.com
    
    

Millennials Trucking helps mid-size and enterprise fleet operators manage costs, billing processes, and operational strategy. Reach out to discuss your fleet's situation.