Detention, Layover, and TONU: What Each Accessorial Actually Pays For

A truck backs into a dock at 8 a.m. for a 9 a.m. appointment. By noon it still hasn't been loaded. The driver is burning hours of service sitting still, the truck isn't earning anything, and somewhere a dispatcher is trying to figure out what to bill for it. This happens every day, and it's the exact situation that detention, layover, and TONU exist to address. The problem is that shippers, carriers, and brokers often use these terms loosely, which leads to disputes that have nothing to do with the actual freight and everything to do with who owes what.

Each of these accessorials covers a different failure point in the trip. Knowing which one applies — and what it's actually compensating for — makes the conversation a lot shorter.

The problem: a truck that isn't moving still costs money

A commercial truck only earns revenue when it's loaded and moving toward a delivery. A driver's hours of service are also a finite, regulated resource — once they're used up sitting at a dock, they can't be recovered that day. Detention, layover, and TONU all exist to compensate the carrier for capacity that was reserved, tied up, or wasted, regardless of whose fault the delay was. They aren't penalties for a shipper having a bad day at the warehouse; they're a way of pricing the cost of a truck standing still instead of running.

Detention: paying for time at the dock

Detention pays for the hours a truck sits at a shipper or receiver beyond the agreed free time. Free time varies by contract and commodity, but it's commonly a window of a couple of hours from the appointment or arrival time before the clock on detention starts. Detention is specific to loading and unloading delays — it doesn't apply to traffic, weather, or a truck that arrived late through no fault of the facility. Clean documentation of check-in and check-out times is what turns a detention claim from an argument into a formality.

Layover: paying for a truck held overnight or longer

Layover applies when a truck is held so long, or a shipment is delayed so much, that the driver can't complete the load in the same duty day and has to stop for a mandated rest period, or wait for the next business day for a facility to reopen. It's a step beyond detention: detention covers extra hours at a dock, layover covers an entire lost day of a driver and truck's availability. Because layover ties directly into hours-of-service rules, it's usually less negotiable than detention — the driver legally cannot keep going, whatever the shipper's preference.

TONU: paying for a truck that never got loaded at all

Truck Order Not Used, or TONU, covers the scenario where a carrier dispatches a truck to a pickup and the load is canceled, rescheduled, or simply isn't there — after the carrier has already committed that truck's capacity to the job. The truck may have arrived and found nothing to load, or it may never have left because the cancellation came in at the last minute. Either way, the carrier turned down other freight to hold that slot, and TONU compensates for that lost opportunity, not for miles driven.

Why getting the label right matters

• Detention, layover, and TONU are triggered by different events, so mislabeling one weakens the claim.
• Timestamps — arrival, check-in, check-out, dispatch confirmation — are what actually settle these disputes, not opinions about who was slow.
• Practices around free time, notice windows, and documentation requirements vary by carrier and by contract, so it's worth confirming the specifics before a load moves, not after.

Ellys International Logistics works these situations from both sides of the load, in English and Spanish, across a carrier network that's vetted against live FMCSA data before dispatch — which is part of why accessorial documentation tends to be clean rather than contested after the fact.

If you're setting up a lane and want the accessorial terms spelled out before the truck ever gets dispatched, start at /quote.