Four Southwestern states have received a federal grant to fund the development of a program alerting commercial truck drivers to available public parking at Interstate 10 rest areas.

Public parking for commercial vehicles is among the priorities of the I-10 Corridor Coalition, which Arizona, California, Texas and New Mexico founded in 2016 to find ways to make travel safer and more efficient along I-10. Texas applied for and was awarded the grant on behalf of all four states.

The $6.8 million Advanced Transportation and Congestion Management Technologies Deployment grant from the Federal Highway Administration requires a 50% match by the four states.

The I-10 Corridor Coalition will use the funding to implement a truck parking availability detection and information dissemination system at 37 public truck parking locations along I-10 from California to Texas. The system will make real-time truck parking information available to truck drivers and dispatchers to assist them in making informed parking decisions.

FHWA's ATCMTD program funds early deployments of cutting-edge technologies that can serve as national models to improve travel for commuters and businesses.  It was established under the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. State departments of transportation, local governments, transit agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, and other eligible entities were invited to apply under the program.

The I-10 Corridor Coalition is designed to remove “friction” – such as the variety of commercial vehicle permitting and inspection practices in each state along I-10 – to move goods more efficiently.

I-10 is the primary trucking route connecting the markets of Southern California and Texas with international shipping. If the four states were combined, the region would have the world’s 10th-largest economy.

Learn more about the I-10 Corridor Coalition at i10Connects.com.