Every module, working from one live record
This page walks through each module in detail: what the screen does, what the AI decides, and where people stay in charge. There are six chapters, from the gate barrier to the back office, and every one writes to the same real-time record.
Automated check-in at the gate
Trucks can arrive through an AI camera, the driver's own phone, or a staffed desk. All three write the same record and start the same clocks.
Gate Lens — the AI camera on the lane
A camera photographs each truck, reads the plate, and matches it against the day's bookings. Above your confidence threshold it acts hands-free: check-in recorded, appointment marked arrived, barrier up. Below it, a pending card waits for a human.
- Hands-free on confident reads, with a confidence threshold you control
- Watchlist plates never open the gate: the barrier holds and security is paged
- Optional barrier relay — one URL, a Test button, and a five-second timeout
- Plate reads kept 90 days by default; retention is a setting, 1–730 days
Read at 99% and matched a watchlist entry. The barrier stays down; security gets the page.
Driver self check-in from their own phone
A QR code at the gate opens a one-minute public form on the driver's phone. There's no app to install and no account to create. YardHelm matches the booking by truck plate, parks the trailer, and marks the appointment arrived.
- Nothing for the driver to install or sign up for
- Only the driver's name is required — carrier, trailer and plate are optional
- Booking matched by plate; trailer auto-parked; appointment marked arrived
- Each submission lands as a card for staff to accept or reject
Scan the QR at the gate
A public page opens on the driver's phone.
Type a name — the rest is optional
Carrier, trailer and plate sharpen the match.
YardHelm matches the booking by plate
Trailer parked, appointment marked arrived, reference returned.
A gate desk for everything else
Walk-ups, paper bookings, reefer intake, odd cases — the staffed gate screen handles them in seconds and writes exactly the same records the camera does.
- Check-in captures trailer, carrier and seal; the reefer toggle sets the cold-chain range on the spot
- Pending camera reads and self check-ins queue on the same screen for one-click confirm
- Every entry starts the same detention clock and yard record, however the truck arrived
Live yard visibility, with the next move already planned
The live map shows the current state of the yard. The optimizer suggests what to move next, and people or robots carry the moves out.
Yard Vision — the live map
Zones, spots and dock doors drawn as they really are, with every trailer where it actually sits. Reefer alarms are painted straight onto the map, so a warm trailer is impossible to miss.
- Live positions for every trailer, door and spot — updates in under a second
- Reefer excursions glow on the map itself, not in a buried list
- Seeded with a working layout from day one: 3 zones, 36 spots, 24 dock doors
- Yard check: walk the yard with a phone and reconcile what is really parked where
The AI move optimizer plans every shunt
Every minute, YardHelm scores every possible move in the yard on appointment urgency, pre-cool holds and door fit, then queues the best ones. Each suggestion shows its reasons, and a person approves it before anything rolls.
- Fresh scores every minute, across every trailer, door and spot
- Weighs appointment urgency, reefer pre-cool holds and door fit
- Auto-queue is opt-in, with a minimum score (default 70) and a queue cap (default 3)
- Looks 120 minutes ahead, so trailers stage before their doors open
Appointment in 40 min · receiving door fits · shortest tow
Pre-cool hold · must reach set-point before its 06:00 door
Ready for autonomous yard tractors
Every approved move is also a mission on an open API. Autonomous yard tractors claim missions and report progress exactly like any other worker — no special integration project, just a credential.
- Missions carry structured from/to — door or spot, with label and zone
- Tractors claim, then report EN_ROUTE → HOOKED → COMPLETE, or FAILED with a note
- A mission can only be claimed once, so two tractors are never sent for the same trailer
- Humans and robots share one move board, and the audit trail names both
Autonomous tractors and human spotters work the same board, and the audit trail names both.
Dock scheduling that carries through to billing
Carriers book their own slots, the gate marks arrivals automatically, and the detention math runs from the same timestamps.
Dock Schedule, with the best door suggested
Week, planner and request views for every appointment. When you schedule, YardHelm shows the top free doors for that hour — the best fit starred — and a truck plate on the booking lets Gate Lens mark the arrival hands-free.
- Suggested doors for the chosen time: top four free, ★ marks the best fit
- Durations from 30 minutes to 3 hours; defaults to the next full hour, 90 minutes
- Add the truck plate and the gate camera matches the arrival automatically
- Link an inbound truck to see its live ETA on the appointment
Suggested doors for this time
Plate ABQ 1234 on the booking — Gate Lens will mark it arrived.
A public booking portal carriers actually use
Carriers book and manage their own dock slots on a public page — no login, no phone tag. Requests land in your approval queue, or clear automatically for the carriers you trust.
- Booking window, slot length, trucks per slot, lead time and change cut-off — all yours to set
- Three approval modes: MANUAL review, TRUSTED carriers auto-clear, or AUTO for everything
- Declines require a reason; changes respect your cut-off window
- Out of the box: 60-minute slots, 3 trucks per slot, 12-hour lead time
The detention money engine
Free hours, then dollars per hour, with daily caps — per carrier, in both directions. The clock starts at the gate, a live runway counts down on every trailer, and when a carrier pushes back you export a dispute pack with the evidence.
- Rules per carrier or one default: free time, $/hour, daily caps
- Both directions — charges you pay the carrier, and charges the carrier pays you
- Storage too: free days, then demurrage per day
- Live runway countdown on every parked trailer, so charges never come as a surprise
- One-click dispute packs: timestamps, evidence and the math, ready to send
| Rule | Free | Rate | Cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard (default) | 2 h | $50/h | $300/day |
| Maple Freight contract | 3 h | $45/h | $350/day |
| Express Lines contract | 1 h | $65/h | $400/day |
Reefer monitoring with two-way control
YardHelm tracks each trailer's temperature against its allowed range, raises alarms worth acting on, and sends commands back with a confirmation step in front of them.
Reefer Watch — the live temperature board
Every refrigerated trailer reports its own temperature against its allowed range. States are explicit — OK, excursion, working, stale, no data — and a sensor that goes quiet is itself an alarm.
- Range set at check-in: flip the reefer toggle, type min and max, done
- Door-open pulldowns read as WORKING, not false alarms
- Silence is an alarm: quiet for 120 minutes goes STALE, escalating every 15
- Low reefer fuel flagged at 20% — before the load warms, not after
Two-way control, confirmed before it's sent
Set-point, pre-cool, defrost — sent from the screen to the trailer. Every command makes you type the trailer number to confirm, and YardHelm then verifies the next readings actually moved before calling it done.
- Commands: set-point, pre-cool, defrost, pre-trip, power and alarm clear
- Type the trailer number to confirm — no fat-finger commands
- Verified against the next readings; a command that did not land is flagged, loudly
- Every command logged: pending, sent, confirmed, failed or unverified
Type the trailer number to confirm:
| Time | Trailer | Command | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17:42 | RFR-204 | SET_POINT −18 | CONFIRMED |
| 17:12 | RFR-771 | PRE_COOL | SENT |
| 16:03 | RFR-318 | DEFROST | UNVERIFIED |
Records an auditor will accept
Cold-chain history is kept for a full year and exports as an FSMA-style report per trailer — temperatures, ranges, excursions and the commands sent, in one file.
- Readings retained 365 days by default
- Per-trailer FSMA-style CSV export, one click
- Excursion, recovery, stale and low-fuel events all on the record
- Command history rides along — who sent what, and whether it verified
| Time | Temp | Range | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| 06:00 | −17.9 °C | −20…−15 | OK |
| 06:15 | −13.8 °C | −20…−15 | EXCURSION |
| 06:30 | −16.2 °C | −20…−15 | RECOVERED |
A full year of history stands behind every row.
Fuel, tax and emissions from the data you already have
Fuel purchases are cross-checked against GPS, IFTA packs are built from actual miles, and CO₂ comes straight from fuel records. The EV report answers the electrification question with your own routes.
Fuel purchases, cross-checked against GPS
Card feeds from WEX and Comdata are checked against where the truck actually was when the purchase happened. A purchase about a kilometre from the truck verifies; more than 5 km away, it's flagged. Idle burn is measured the same way, per unit.
- WEX, Comdata or plain CSV — import a file or post a single purchase
- ~1 km from the truck → VERIFIED; over 5 km → FLAGGED for review
- Every flagged purchase fires a webhook, so the alert reaches whoever needs it
- Idle burn measured per unit — the diesel you pay for standing still
| Unit | Station | Distance | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| T-101 | Pilot #44 | 0.4 km | VERIFIED |
| T-118 | Route 9 Fuel | 0.9 km | VERIFIED |
| T-204 | Hwy 7 Card Lock | 214 km | FLAGGED |
Tax packs, carbon, and the EV question
GPS miles roll into quarterly IFTA packs by jurisdiction. Fuel becomes CO₂ using EPA factors. And the EV-readiness report answers the fleet question with your own data — which trucks' days already fit an electric range.
- IFTA quarterly tax packs built from actual GPS miles, per jurisdiction
- CO₂ from fuel with EPA emission factors — no separate carbon tool
- EV-ready when a truck's typical daily distance fits comfortably within an EV's range
- OCPP charger sessions logged: kWh, state of charge, cost per session
Legal driving clocks and driver scores
ELD feeds keep every driver's remaining drive, shift and cycle time live on one board, and dash-cam AI events roll into per-driver safety scores — so dispatch plans with the law, and coaching goes where the data points.
- Drive, shift and cycle minutes remaining — from Samsara, Motive or Geotab ELDs
- Duty status at a glance: off, sleeper, driving, on-duty
- Violations surface on the same board dispatch already uses
- Dash-cam events feed safety scores and a driver leaderboard
Safety, security and the back office in the same login
Cameras, wearables and asset tags feed a single incident queue, and the administrative side of the system comes ready to use.
Dash-cam events become coaching, not folders of clips
AI dash cams report distraction, phone use, harsh braking and more. Each event enters a review workflow — coach it, recognize it, or dismiss it — and the outcomes build every driver's score.
- Event types from harsh braking to drowsiness, phone use and tailgating
- Review flow: new → reviewed, coached, dismissed or recognized
- Severity, g-force, speed and a camera frame on every event
- Scores, a leaderboard and assigned courses close the loop
The outcome feeds the driver's score and the leaderboard.
SOS wearables, site cameras and asset tags — one incident center
A wearable's SOS, a fall, an after-hours person at the fence, a missing pallet jack heard again — different devices, one queue. Incidents open automatically, reach the right people, and close with notes.
- SOS and fall events open an incident automatically, with location
- Missed worker check-ins raise their own alarm
- Site-camera detections stream in; after-hours person events escalate
- BLE tags flag gear left behind — and a MISSING tag heard again flags recovery
The back office is already built
Sixteen canned reports with schedules and BI feeds, live metrics, a full audit trail, team chat with tasks, a forms builder and an AI assistant — the unglamorous half of a yard system, done on day one.
- Reports run on a schedule — daily, weekly, monthly — to email or webhook
- Stable BI feed URLs serve any dashboard tool, CSV or JSON
- Every change lands in the audit trail; evidence exports are one click
- Chat, tasks, a forms builder and an AI assistant, in the same login
See every module for yourself
The full demo runs every screen on this page in your browser, on realistic practice data, with guided tours included. If you'd rather read first, the how-it-works page shows how the modules fit together.