TONU means truck order not used. In trucking, it is the fee a carrier bills when a load it was dispatched on gets cancelled before it can be picked up. It compensates the carrier for capacity it committed and deadhead miles it already ran, not for the load itself.
Whether a TONU is owed comes down to one question: had the carrier meaningfully performed on the dispatch before the cancellation landed? A truck that was assigned, routed, and sent toward a shipper has a claim. A load cancelled two days out, before anyone moved, generally does not. And unlike detention or lumper, there is no federal rule here at all. TONU is entirely a creature of the rate confirmation and the broker-carrier agreement.
That makes TONU the accessorial where contract language does the most work and evidence does the rest. So the whole fight happens on paper: what a TONU legitimately covers, the cancellation cutoff that decides most cases, the documents that settle a contested one, and the clauses to write so the argument does not recur.
What a TONU is actually compensating
Start with the economics, because they explain every reasonable rule you could write.
When a carrier accepts a load, it takes a truck off the market. It stops bidding that truck for the pickup window, it may run empty miles to position for the pickup, and it may turn down other freight it could have taken. Cancellation destroys all three: the capacity, the positioning miles, and the foregone alternatives. A TONU is a partial, negotiated substitute for that loss. It is not a penalty and it is not liquidated damages for the linehaul, which is why TONU amounts are typically a fraction of the load rate rather than the whole thing.
The standard accessorial taxonomy lists TONU as one of the recognized charge types alongside layover, detention, and diversion miles, and like those, it publishes no dollar figure. TONU rates are negotiated. What is common is that the amount is stated flat on the rate confirmation or in a master agreement, sometimes with a mileage component for deadhead already run.
Framed this way, the fairness test writes itself. The carrier should be made partially whole for commitment it actually made. It should not collect for commitment it never made.
The cancellation cutoff: the single fact that decides most TONUs
Nearly every contested TONU turns on where the cancellation fell relative to the carrier’s performance. Four positions, in order:
Before dispatch. The load was booked but no truck was assigned and no driver was routed. The carrier lost an option, not a commitment. Most agreements owe nothing here, and a TONU billed at this stage is the weakest version of the charge.
After dispatch, before movement. A specific truck and driver were assigned to the load. The carrier turned down other freight to hold that truck. Whether this earns a TONU is exactly what your contract should say, and it is where most disputes live. A reasonable agreement pays something here, because the capacity really was committed.
After the truck started moving toward the shipper. Deadhead miles have been run. This is the clearest case for a TONU, and disputing it usually costs more in relationship than the fee is worth.
After arrival at the shipper. The truck is at the gate and the load is cancelled or has no freight. This is a TONU plus, potentially, detention if the driver waited before being released. Do not let the two collapse into one line: they compensate different things and are evidenced differently, which is why the evidence a detention charge actually needs is worth reading alongside this.
The reason to define these four positions in writing is that “dispatch” means different things in different operations. For some carriers dispatch is the moment the load is assigned in the TMS. For others it is when the driver accepts it on the app. For others it is when the truck rolls. A contract that says “TONU applies after dispatch” without saying which event dispatch means has not settled anything.
The evidence that settles a contested TONU
Once the cutoff is defined, a contested TONU is a timestamp comparison. Two timestamps and one document.
Timestamp one: the cancellation. The message, email, TMS status change, or load board update, with the time it was sent and the time it was received. Sent time and received time can differ meaningfully when a cancellation goes to a dispatcher’s voicemail at 6pm.
Timestamp two: the carrier’s performance. The dispatch record showing when the truck was assigned, the driver’s acceptance, ELD or telematics data showing when the truck started moving and where it went, or the gate record if it arrived.
The document: the rate confirmation. It defines the TONU amount, the cutoff event, and the notice method. Without it you are arguing about what is fair, which is a conversation with no ending.
That triad is the TONU version of a pattern that shows up everywhere on an audit desk. The most useful published account of this pattern names the rate confirmation, the BOL or POD with facility timestamps, and the carrier’s own documentation as the three documents to pull before contesting any carrier invoice. TONU swaps the POD for the dispatch and telematics record, because there is no delivery to prove.
| What the carrier claims | Evidence that supports it | Evidence that undercuts it |
|---|---|---|
| Truck was dispatched before cancellation | TMS dispatch record, driver acceptance timestamp | Cancellation timestamp precedes assignment |
| Deadhead miles were run | ELD or GPS trace toward the origin, fuel stop records | No movement toward origin after assignment |
| Truck arrived and was turned away | Gate log, check-in record, geofence entry, driver photo | No arrival record at the origin facility |
| Notice was never received | Message logs showing no delivery or a late timestamp | Confirmed receipt in the TMS or a reply from the carrier |
| Other freight was turned down | Contemporaneous declined tenders on that truck | Truck was covered on another load in the same window |
Two honest notes on reading this table. Telematics data is strong evidence but it is the carrier’s data, and asking for it is a normal request, not an accusation. And absence of a record is not always absence of the event: a small carrier without a TMS may genuinely have dispatched a truck by phone. In that case ask for the driver’s log or the dispatcher’s notes from the day, and weigh them.
Situations where a TONU is not owed
Be specific here, because a blanket refusal damages carrier relationships you need in a tight market.
The cancellation preceded the contractual cutoff. Cleanest case. Show the two timestamps and the clause.
The carrier cancelled, not you. A carrier that falls off a load does not bill a TONU for its own withdrawal. Occasionally this appears when a truck breaks down and the load is re-covered, and it is usually a coding error rather than intent.
The load was not cancelled but rescheduled within the contracted window. Moving a pickup from Tuesday morning to Tuesday afternoon is not a cancellation. Moving it from Tuesday to Friday probably is, and the contract should say where that line falls.
The truck was re-covered on other freight in the same window. If the carrier billed a TONU for lost capacity and then ran that truck on a different load in the same period, the loss the fee compensates did not occur. This is worth checking and worth raising gently: dispatch and billing are often different desks.
The TONU was billed twice, or billed alongside a full linehaul. When a cancelled load gets rebooked and moves later, the original TONU sometimes rides along on the second invoice. Same-load, same-amount checks across a 90-day window catch this, which is the same routine described in how duplicate freight invoices actually get through.
The amount does not match the rate confirmation. Simple and common. The service happened, the entitlement is real, and the number is wrong. Check entitlement and arithmetic as two separate questions, always.
What regulation does and does not give you
Almost nothing, and saying otherwise in a dispute letter costs you credibility.
There is no federal rule creating a right to a TONU, capping one, or setting a cancellation notice period. TONU is contractual, full stop. What federal rules do give you are the generic protections that attach to any charge on a freight bill:
- Itemization. Under 49 CFR 373.103, a freight or expense bill must show the exact rates assessed and the total charges due with the nature and amount of each charge. A TONU has to be identified as a TONU, with an amount, not folded into an undescribed accessorial total.
- Billing and contesting windows. Under 49 U.S.C. 13710, a carrier must bill charges additional to those originally billed within 180 days of your receipt of the original bill to preserve collection rights, and you have 180 days from receipt to contest a bill and preserve your right to challenge it.
- The outer limit on collection. Under 49 U.S.C. 14705, a carrier must begin a civil action to recover freight charges within 18 months of the claim accruing. That is the backstop, not the working deadline, and the working deadlines are collected in every freight billing deadline that can cost you money.
- An overcharge path if you already paid. Under 49 CFR 378.8, the processing carrier must pay, decline, or settle a written overcharge claim within 60 days of receipt absent a written agreement to extend.
None of that decides whether the TONU is owed. It decides how the paperwork has to look and how long each side has to act.
The rate confirmation clauses that prevent the argument
If you broker freight, four sentences in your rate confirmation eliminate most TONU disputes before they start.
Define the triggering event. Name it precisely: “TONU applies where the load is cancelled after the carrier’s dispatch, defined as driver assignment recorded in the carrier’s system.” Ambiguity here is the root cause of most contested TONUs.
State the amount, and whether it scales. A flat figure is simplest. If you want deadhead to be recoverable separately, say so and name the mileage basis, because mileage engines disagree and the difference is real money on a long reposition.
Specify the notice method and the effective time. “Cancellation is effective when sent to the carrier’s dispatch email of record” removes the voicemail argument entirely. Whatever you choose, choose one channel and make it the one your team actually uses.
Say what happens on reschedule versus cancellation. Define the window inside which a moved pickup is a reschedule, not a cancellation, and whether a rescheduled load that later moves extinguishes the TONU.
Then check that the confirmation you send actually matches the master agreement, because when the two conflict, you have handed the argument to whoever reads more carefully. That comparison is the same one described in reconciling a rate confirmation against the carrier invoice, run before the load instead of after it.
The working checklist
- Confirm what the line is. TONU, layover, and detention are different charges. If more than one appears on a cancelled load, ask what each covers.
- Get both timestamps. Cancellation sent and received; carrier dispatch or first movement.
- Read the cutoff clause on the rate confirmation, and check it against the master agreement.
- Compare the amount to the contracted figure, including any separate deadhead component and the mileage basis it uses.
- Ask for the carrier’s record if the timestamps are contested: dispatch entry, driver acceptance, ELD trace, gate log. Ask plainly and give a date.
- Check whether the truck was re-covered in the same window.
- Check for a duplicate if the load later moved, and for the TONU riding on the second invoice.
- Pay what is owed quickly. A legitimate TONU paid the week it is billed buys goodwill with a carrier you will need at 4pm on a Friday. Disputing an earned TONU to save a few hundred dollars is a bad trade.
That last point is worth more than the rest combined. TONU sits at the intersection of billing and capacity, and the desk that pays clean TONUs fast and contests only the unsupported ones gets better coverage than the desk that fights all of them. The rest of the accessorial landscape works the same way, laid out charge by charge in the full accessorial charges reference and, for the one accessorial where cash moves before any document exists, in who actually pays a lumper fee.
Sources
- 49 CFR 373.103, Freight or expense bills (Cornell LII)
- 49 U.S.C. 13710, billing and contesting windows (Cornell LII)
- 49 U.S.C. 14705, limitation on actions to collect freight charges (Cornell LII)
- 49 CFR 378.8, overcharge claim resolution within 60 days (Cornell LII)
- Top 20 accessorial charges, practitioner taxonomy (Zipline Logistics)
- The three documents to pull before contesting a carrier invoice (Laneproof)