Spot the chargeable wait
Not every delay is chargeable, and claiming for every late tip weakens the claims that should succeed. Waits caused by the DC — no bay available at the booked slot, late unloading, paperwork held at goods-in, or a site closed outside its published hours — are usually chargeable once the agreed free time has passed. Waits caused by your own late arrival, a missed booking slot or missing delivery paperwork usually are not. Set one consistent rule for what you claim. It does not have to be perfect — it has to be consistent, because a consistent claim pattern is what earns credibility with the customer's transport or goods-in team.
Evidence it the way the customer expects
Claims are rejected for missing booking references, missing arrival and departure times or no proof of when the driver was actually on site. Build every claim with the same fields: booking reference and slot time, site and bay, vehicle registration, driver, arrival time at the gate, time the vehicle was tipped or loaded, departure time, and the free time agreed in your rate card. Back it with independent evidence — telematics or tracker timestamps, a gate-in/gate-out record or a signed delivery note — rather than a handwritten note added later.
Free time — the most common error
Free time is the waiting period included in your rate before charges start. It varies by customer, by site and sometimes by load type. The most common mistake is measuring the wait from the wrong point — from the booked slot when the driver arrived late, or from arrival when the agreement says the clock starts at the booked slot. Check the rate agreement before you claim, show the free-time calculation explicitly, and apply the agreed hourly or part-hour rate. Customers cannot argue with the terms they signed.
Chase, don't absorb
First responses are often 'not agreed' or simply silence. That rarely means the claim has been reviewed. Escalating politely to the customer's transport manager or account contact, with the evidence attached, recovers a large share of legitimate claims on the second pass. Track every claim by status — open, disputed, escalated, paid, written off — and never close one without a written outcome.
Capture the evidence on the day
Most waiting time goes unclaimed not because it is unrecoverable, but because the paperwork is assembled weeks later, when timestamps and delivery notes have scattered. Capture arrival, tip and departure times at the moment they happen — from the driver app or the vehicle tracker — and the claim becomes a few minutes' work rather than an afternoon of reconstruction.
Realistic recovery rates and timelines
With a structured process, hauliers typically recover a meaningful share of the waiting time they used to write off, with payment usually following within one or two invoice cycles. A small number of long waits at a few problem sites tend to account for most of the value; the long tail of short waits is only worth chasing when claims are created automatically from timestamps you already hold.
Consistent rules, timestamped evidence captured on the day, and the discipline to chase every claim to a written outcome turn DC waiting time from a write-off into recovered revenue.