Dwell Time
In Arabicزمن المكوث
How long a vehicle stays inside a given site, such as a customer warehouse or a port, from entering to leaving.
What is dwell time in fleet management?
Dwell time is the time between a vehicle entering a site and leaving it. It covers queuing at the gate, loading or unloading and paperwork. Once it exceeds the time agreed with the customer it becomes detention, which many haulage contracts charge for.
It is usually measured with a geofence around each site: entry and exit times give the duration without relying on the driver's word.
How it works
- 1A geofence is drawn around each site
- 2Entry and exit times are logged
- 3Duration is compared with the agreed limit
Why does dwell time matter in fleet management?
Every hour a truck waits at a customer is an hour it carries nothing, and it may burn fuel if the engine runs to power refrigeration. Measuring dwell time per site exposes the customers consuming your fleet's capacity and gives you numbers to negotiate delivery windows or waiting charges.
What you gain
- Exposes sites holding your vehicles
- Basis for detention charges
- More accurate trip schedules
How does Safee help measure dwell time?
Safee works out the length of every visit to every geofence, shows hours spent inside geofences in the Geofences Visits widget of the Vehicle Dashboard, and raises a Time Inside a Geofence alarm as soon as a vehicle overstays the allowed time. You see which sites hold your fleet and have documented figures when you claim waiting charges.
A field example
A chilled-food distributor in Riyadh serves 70 stores of a supermarket chain, and its trucks kept finishing evening runs late. It measured dwell time at every store for a month and found nine stores averaging over 75 minutes against 25 elsewhere, with engines running throughout to power the reefer units. It agreed fixed receiving windows for those stores with the customer. Dwell time there fell to 35 minutes and the fleet saved about 500 litres of diesel a month.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between dwell time and idle time?
Dwell time belongs to a site and counts all time inside it, engine on or off; idle time is the engine running while the vehicle stands still, wherever it is.
What is an acceptable dwell time?
It depends on the operation and the contract; many haulage contracts allow a free period for loading or unloading, often one to two hours, before waiting charges apply.
Want to put this to work in your fleet?
Talk to a Safee fleet expert about your vehicles and how you operate, and we will suggest what fits.
Request a consultationSafee fleet management newsletter
Fleet management news, updates and practical tips, sent to your inbox regularly.