Truck Parking: Perception vs. Reality

No question we're in a big-rig parking jam. Fleets and drivers see it as a shortage of spaces. NATSO says fleets just aren't planning ahead.

The trucking side quotes a study showing we're shy 36,000 parking spots. When a driver runs out of legal hours and can't find a truckstop or rest stop, he parks that big fella roadside. In the Department of Asking for Trouble, that's like leading with your ear in a fight with Mike Tyson.

NATSO, the association representing truck stops and travel plazas, has its own study showing no "systematic" parking shortage exists. It says fleet logistics are so good that drivers could hit truckstops before they're out of hours without productivity losses.

Two axes are being ground here:

1. Trucking needs every minute of on-road time it can get. More parking would help, and would reduce driver fatigue. If truckstops don't have the spaces, fleets will take them anywhere they can get them.
2. Fuel margins and overhead are squeezing truckstops. They fear that publicly funding rest stop expansions - which trucking supports - would cause widespread failures of privately owned truckstops.

The situation got ridiculous when NATSO proposed that fleets finance a trust fund (at $300 per truck) that states could use to develop rest areas. Someone here forgot who the customer is. NATSO chief Dewey Clower says drivers often park on roadsides because it's easy — not because they're out of hours — and that law enforcement is sympathetic to such drivers.

If you really want your ear chewed off, tell that to a trucker.

The reality: At the end of the workday in many regions, there's not a legal parking spot to be found. It's worst east of the Mississippi, but even some Western truckstops fill to overflowing come evening.

During the Safety Technology issue Forum at the SAE Truck & Bus Meeting last month in Portland, Ore., a high-powered panel of experts agreed to work together in pursuit of solutions:

• U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue
• Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration official Julie Cirillo
• National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall
• Jim Johnston, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Assn. president
• Richard Manfredi, Manfredi Motor Transit CEO
• David Willis, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety CEO

We hope they can get something started, and that trucking — and NATSO — stop bickering and get involved.

One possibility, which NATSO has suggested, is to allow private investment in state rest aras. Another, already being considered in California, is for states to financially partner with truckstops in parking expansion program.

And technology must be part of the solution. Maybe electronic monitoring of parking spaces to allow drivers, via the Internet, to see what's available when they're a couple of hours from a truckstop. Perhaps a parking space data bank could be developed and accessed by Internet or phone. Or electronic roadside signs could tell truckers how much parking is available at the next truckstop.

It takes $100,000 to set up an acre of truck parking, which can handle about 20 big rigs. Maintaining it costs another $10,000 a year.

So don't expect truckstops to rush to expand on their own. But don't expect trucking companies to finance parking through another distrustful fund, either.

From the January 2001 issue of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine