FMCSA Proposes Guidance Defining Where Yard Moves Count as On-Duty Time

In January 2021, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposed new regulatory guidance on a question that had long caused confusion at terminals and ports: when can moving a truck be logged as a yard move instead of driving time?

The notice, published in the Federal Register on January 4, 2021 (docket FMCSA-2020-0118), applied to every commercial motor vehicle driver required to record hours of service. Under the proposal, movements of a truck within a qualifying "yard" could be recorded as on-duty, not driving time rather than counting against a driver's driving limit.

What would count as a yard

The guidance offered examples rather than a strict definition. Properties that could qualify included:

• An intermodal yard or port facility
• A motor carrier's place of business
• A shipper's privately owned parking lot
• A public road, but only while public access is restricted through traffic control such as gates, lights or flaggers, for example when a driver briefly crosses a road to reach another part of the same private property

Places that would not qualify included public roads without traffic control and public rest areas.

FMCSA stressed that the document was guidance only. According to the notice, if finalized it would not carry the force of law; it was meant to explain how the agency interprets its existing rules.

Background

The 2015 electronic logging device rule required ELDs to record yard moves as on-duty, not driving time, but it never defined what a yard move was. The proposed guidance was meant to fill that gap with concrete examples.

The agency asked commenters whether yard moves should be defined in regulation, whether other properties or situations should be listed as examples, and how "yard" itself should be defined. Comments were due February 3, 2021, according to Transport Topics.

What it means for drivers and fleets

For drivers who spend part of the shift shuttling trailers at ports, distribution centers or carrier lots, the distinction matters. Time logged as driving eats into the daily driving limit, while yard-move time does not.

The proposal gave fleets a clearer reference point for training drivers on when to toggle the yard-move setting on their ELDs, and when not to. Using the status on an open public road or at a rest area would fall outside the examples FMCSA listed.

Carriers with yard-heavy operations had an opportunity to weigh in through the comment period, including on whether the agency should go further and write a definition into the regulations themselves.