Accessorials in Plain English

What an accessorial actually is

The linehaul is priced for a standard run: a live load or a drop trailer, a working commercial dock, freight that loads and unloads in a normal window, no dwell, no extra hands. An accessorial is a separately stated charge for anything outside that baseline. It isn't a penalty and it isn't padding — it's the price of the extra time, labor, equipment, or risk a specific facility or lane demands.

As a rule, the party that creates the condition carries it. A receiver whose dock runs slow generates detention; a facility that mandates a lumper generates a lumper fee. In practice the carrier bills the charge and it settles through the rate confirmation and the customer of record — what matters is that the trigger and the number were agreed in writing first.

A good carrier prices accessorials plainly and names the trigger up front. If a rate looks unusually low and the carrier goes quiet when you ask about detention or tarping, the low number isn't the real number. Ask before you tender, not after the truck is loaded.

Time charges: detention, layover, TONU

These three bill for a truck's time rather than its miles. A truck earns when it rolls; when it sits, someone has committed the driver's hours and the trailer to your freight and nothing else.

Detention

Dwell time past the free window. A stop gets a set amount of free time to load or unload — commonly around two hours, though the exact window is whatever your rate confirmation says — after which detention accrues at an hourly figure agreed on that same confirmation. It's triggered by a slow dock, not by the driver, and it's generally borne by the party whose facility held the truck. Timestamped arrival and departure are what make or break a detention bill.

Layover

A driver held overnight because the freight can't load or unload the day it was scheduled — a missed appointment, a facility that closed, a first-come dock that ran out of daylight. It compensates for a full day of the driver's capacity spent waiting. Owed by whichever side caused the overnight hold, and quoted per the rate confirmation rather than from a fixed number.

TONU (truck ordered not used)

A load booked and dispatched, then cancelled after the truck already committed — sometimes after it deadheaded to the pickup. TONU covers the capacity and the empty miles the carrier can no longer sell elsewhere. It's owed by the party that ordered the truck and then stood it down, and the amount is set on the confirmation, not improvised at cancellation.

Labor and access: lumper, driver assist, limited-access, tarping

These bill for hands, difficulty, or equipment at the point of pickup or delivery — the work the linehaul rate assumes won't be needed. Most are avoidable surprises simply by describing the stop honestly at tender.

Lumper

A facility charge for a third-party crew that loads or unloads the trailer, common at grocery and retail distribution centers. The driver usually pays the lumper on site and is reimbursed against the receipt, so the cost passes through to the customer at actual — no receipt, no clean reimbursement. Keep the lumper receipt; it's the entire basis of the charge.

Driver assist / driver-unload

The driver personally helps load or unload — hand-stacking, working a pallet jack, sorting and segregating — rather than waiting while a dock crew works. Distinct from a lumper, which is a third party; this pays for the driver's own labor. Flag it at booking if the dock will expect it, because not every driver or trailer is set up to hand-unload.

Limited-access / residential delivery

Delivery to a site without a standard commercial dock: a residence, construction site, farm, school, church, storage facility, or military base. These take longer and are harder to work, so they carry an accessorial. Tell the carrier the real delivery environment when you tender — a 'residential' surprise at the door is a redelivery waiting to happen.

Tarping (open-deck)

Flatbed and step-deck freight that must be covered against weather or road grime is tarped by hand — heavy, time-consuming, and dependent on how many tarps and how tall the load runs. It's quoted per the rate confirmation and varies by the build of the load, not a flat figure. Steel, lumber, and machinery routinely tarp; ask up front whether your freight requires it.

When the plan changes: redelivery, reconsignment, storage, permits

These come up when the freight or the route stops matching the original tender. They're the most avoidable accessorials on the list, because most trace back to information that could have been on the load at booking.

Redelivery

A second delivery attempt after the first is missed or turned away — a closed receiver, no appointment, a refused shipment. The truck has to come back, and the return trip is the charge. The fix is almost always a confirmed appointment and correct receiving hours before dispatch.

Reconsignment

Diverting a load to a different consignee or address after it's already in transit. It changes the miles and the plan mid-run, so it prices as an accessorial and can cascade into redelivery or storage. Get the address and appointment right on the tender and this one rarely appears.

Detention vs. storage

Two different clocks people conflate. Detention bills for a truck and driver waiting at a facility; storage bills for freight sitting — on the trailer or in a warehouse — usually because it was refused or can't be delivered yet. If a delivery problem drags on, you can stop paying detention and start paying storage, which is a different and often larger conversation, and a reason to sort refusals fast.

Permit / escort (oversize)

Loads over legal size or weight need state permits, and some need pilot cars or police escorts. Costs and rules are set by each state and the specific route, so they vary widely and are quoted per lane rather than from a table — who orders the permit and plans the routing is agreed in writing before the load moves.

The fuel surcharge is a mechanism, not a profit line

The fuel surcharge (FSC) is the one line on this list not triggered by anything you do — it exists because diesel moves. Rather than rewrite the linehaul every time fuel jumps or drops, the industry separates out a surcharge that tracks the price of diesel, so the base rate can stay stable while the fuel component floats with the market.

Mechanically it's usually pegged to a published diesel index — most commonly the national average the U.S. Energy Information Administration posts weekly — and it adjusts as that index moves. When diesel falls, a properly built surcharge falls with it. That's the tell of an honest FSC: it's a pass-through tracking a real, verifiable cost, not a fixed markup dressed up as one.

Because it floats, the fuel surcharge is stated as a method on the rate confirmation — the index and the schedule it follows — rather than a number you can memorize. Ask how a carrier builds its surcharge; the answer tells you whether it's a mechanism or a margin.

How to keep accessorials off the surprise list

None of these charges is a gotcha when it's agreed before the truck moves. Every item below moves an accessorial from surprise to line item.

• Get the free-time window and the detention hourly figure written on the rate confirmation — not 'standard,' the actual window and the actual rate
• Confirm delivery appointments, receiving hours, and the true delivery environment (dock, residential, limited-access) at tender, before dispatch
• Document arrival and departure timestamps at every stop, gate in and gate out — a detention or layover claim is only as good as its clock
• Keep the lumper receipt every time; it's the entire basis for reimbursement at actual
• Ask up front whether the freight tarps and whether the load runs oversize — both are quoted per lane, not from a table
• When a delivery goes sideways, sort the refusal fast — detention can quietly become storage, which is a bigger bill
• Ask the specifics out loud while you're pricing: 'what's my detention rate on this lane?' A carrier that answers straight is telling you something; one that goes quiet is too