Finding parking the top cause of stress for pro drivers

by Truck News

PHOENIX, Az. – Truck parking availability in the U.S. improved in 2017, but finding a parking spot is the number one cause of stress for 85% of professional drivers.

Those are a couple key findings from the 2018 Truck Parking Report, compiled by Trucker Path, an app that provides up-to-date information about truck parking availability in the U.S. and Canada. The company surveyed more than 5,500 truck drivers and analyzed millions of data points to arrive at conclusions about the need for more truck parking.

Seventy per cent of surveyed drivers admitted they violated hours-of-service rules because of a failure to find a parking spot, and 96% admitted to parking in areas not designated for trucks. Also, 48% of drivers said they have spent an hour or more looking for safe truck parking, with annual losses per driver amounting to US$6,000.

However, Trucker Path data also suggested parking availability improved in almost every state between 2016 and 2017. There are still areas – such as in the eastern U.S. – where there is a severe lack of truck parking capacity.

“We realized that we have a vast amount of truck parking data in our app as well access to a large trucker community, so we explored the problem in depth. By surveying over 5,500 drivers and analyzing millions of data points, we have come to some useful conclusions that we wanted to share with the industry,” says Chris Oliver, chief business officer for Trucker Path.

The study also looked to come up with potential solutions to the problem, the most obvious of which was to spread out the need for parking capacity throughout the day, as most drivers are looking for spots at the same time. Revising personal conveyance rules to give truckers extra time after their HoS limit to find parking could help, Trucker Path concluded.

It also urges approving truck parking in weigh stations and shipper facilities. The study found drivers find shipper facilities almost as safe as truck stops. The full report can be downloaded here.

 

 


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  • We need to fix parking A.S.A.P E-LOGS make it impossible to plan when Walmart and others do not want to provide over night parking when you deliver to them.