Most of what happens in a yard between gate in and gate out is a move: a loaded trailer pulled to a door, an empty pulled off a door so the next appointment can back in, a finished load parked in staging for pickup. If those moves are not written down, the yard list is right at the start of the shift and wrong by lunch, and the question "which trailer is at which door?" goes back to the radio. This page gives you a move log for that: one line per move, written when the move is asked for and closed when the trailer is parked.

01What goes on each line

Each row is one move. Here are three filled in the way a dock lead and a yard driver would fill them:

• Trailer #, carrier, loaded or empty. The trailer number is the key. Loaded or empty matters because an empty parked in a loaded row is the trailer nobody can find at 4 p.m.
• From and To. A spot (B12, E03) or a door (Door 4). Use the same names the yard is painted or signed with, so the next driver can walk to it.
• Reason. To door, from door, to staging, empty pull, spot for pickup, fix location, other. A short fixed list gets filled in; a free-text box gets left blank.
• Requested by, time requested. Written by whoever asks for the move: the dock lead, shipping, the gate.
• Time done, moved by. Written by the driver once the trailer is parked and unhooked. The sheet works out the wait in minutes.

02How to run it

1. Write the row when the move is asked for, not after. A move log filled in at the end of the shift is a guess. If the request is written first, an open move is visible to everyone until it is done.
2. Close the row where the trailer is parked. Time done and the driver's name, at the spot or door, before the next move. The Excel sheet keeps the row amber until Time done is filled.
3. Read the open moves at shift change. The amber rows are the moves the next driver inherits. Read them out loud at handover, the same way you would hand over keys.
4. Check the last To against the yard once a shift. Walk the yard with the log (or our yard check sheet). A trailer that is not where its last row says is a lost trailer, and the log tells you who moved it last.
5. Look at the wait times weekly. If "To door" moves wait 30 minutes while the door sits empty, the yard truck is the bottleneck, not the dock. The summary block shows the average and longest wait.

03Who fills it in

The person who moves trailers in a warehouse yard goes by many names: yard driver, yard jockey, hostler, spotter, shunt driver. O*NET, the US Labor Department's occupation database, files "Spotter Driver" and "Shag Truck Driver" under Industrial Truck and Tractor Operators, people who move materials "around a warehouse, storage yard, factory, construction site, or similar location". That group had a median wage of $22.32 an hour in 2025, according to the same O*NET page (it includes forklift operators too, so it is a rough guide for yard drivers, not an exact figure).

Operate industrial trucks or tractors equipped to move materials around a warehouse, storage yard, factory, construction site, or similar location.O*NET OnLine, 53-7051.00 Industrial Truck and Tractor Operators (onetonline.org, opened October 10, 2026)

Whether that driver needs a CDL to run the yard truck depends on where it drives. We cover that separately in do you need a CDL to drive a yard truck.

04Paper or sheet?

The printed sheet goes on a clipboard in the yard truck. It wins on one thing: the driver can write on it without putting anything down. It loses because nobody in the office can see it until the clipboard comes back. The spreadsheet can be seen from the office and does the wait-time math, but only if someone types the paper rows in, and two people cannot safely edit the same file at the same moment. Neither one knows the yard: neither will stop you from writing two trailers into the same spot.

05Printable move log

This is what prints when you press the button above: one landscape page, 20 moves.

When you outgrow the log

A move log is only as good as the yard list it keeps up to date. Vantage keeps the gate log and the yard list on the same phone: the guard logs each trailer in and out at the gate, and the live yard map and door board show which trailer is at which door, so the office and the yard look at the same picture. If the clipboard and the sheet are keeping up, keep them.

FAQ