Last free day is a clock, not a feeling

Drayage at a busy port is a race against a clock the terminal controls. Appointments fill. Last free day passes. Chassis charges arrive after the container is already empty.

A week of per-diem avoided on one box covers a careful desk many times over. The work is booking the window, watching the clock, and disputing the bill that does not match the events.

One port’s portal is not another’s

That is the risk, and it is why this is not a generic voice agent for trucking. Each terminal wants a different login, a different appointment object, a different way to prove you tried. The first deployment is one gateway — Los Angeles and Long Beach, New York and New Jersey, Savannah, Houston — not “ports.”

Carriers in the tens to low hundreds of trucks have a dispatcher who cannot also be an auditor. The agent watches free time and prepares the dispute. Dispatch still decides which box moves when the yard is jammed.

The file

Appointment attempts, gate events, chassis start and stop, and the invoice line. If a line has no event behind it, it does not go into a dispute. It goes to a person.

Price it per container, or as a share of per-diem actually taken off the bill. Both match how the owner thinks about a bad invoice.