Free Time Ledger

Key point

free time and the days charged after it

Free time is counted in the terminal’s local days. The port does not set its terms; the tariff does. The two start-day conventions alone differ by a full day of charges.

The tariff decides whether the day of discharge is free day one, whether weekends count, how many days are free, and how the days after free time are charged. Free days and charged days are each counted in calendar days or in working days. Many tariffs count both in calendar days. Where a tariff grants free time in working days, the days after it are mostly charged as calendar days. Some tariffs charge working days only.

The track is one zone’s local days, each cell as wide as that day really is. Free days are green, chargeable days amber, and on a working-day tariff the closed days are hatched and not counted. The bar is the dwell, half-open at the gate-out: leaving exactly at the expiry line charges nothing. The outputs are the real freeTimeExpiry and chargeableDays calls for what is on screen, including the charged dates.

1. Set the tariff and the clock

Discharged Friday 15:00 in New York with three free calendar days, out one second into Monday. The weekend is consumed, and Monday is a charged day.

Free daysTier end days

Clock startClock end

2. Free days and charged days

• free
• chargeable
• closed
• event day, not counted

3. What freeTimeExpiry returns

 

4. What chargeableDays returns

 

Worth trying: the same Friday discharge read as nextDay. The bar does not move, but the free window slides a day and the Monday gate-out is no longer charged. Then gate out exactly at the expiry and step the end handle one notch right: the dwell is half-open, so that instant is free and the next is not.

Reference: freeTimeExpiry lays out the free window; chargeableDays counts and lists the charged days; both count from the same local-day boundary as dwellTime. The rules are in Intermodal: Free Time and Demurrage.