* DC - Study: Finds shortage of truck parking a ‘Safety Concern’
-- Parking shortages that could cause truck drivers to continue driving while tired or to stop and spend the night on road shoulders and exit ramps “are a national safety concern,” according to a study the Federal Highway Administration is expected to release on Friday... “Ideally each driver requiring rest should be able to access a safe, clean, full service parking space to obtain long-term rest whenever the need for long-term parking arises,” the 119-page study says. “In reality, there is often a mismatch between driver demand…[and] the availability of an adequate parking space at that point and time” ... The FHA’s survey is the latest and most comprehensive attempt to tackle the problem... More than 75% of the truck drivers surveyed in the study and nearly 66% of logistics personnel reported they regularly had trouble finding safe parking when it was time to rest. Ninety percent reported “struggling to find safe and available parking” at night... The study reveals why the problem is so intractable. There is no single entity—not federal or state governments, not trucking companies or shippers—responsible for truck parking facilities. Moreover, the vast majority of truck parking—88% of the 309,000 spaces documented in the study—is at private truck stops, not in public rest areas... But truck-stop operators reported challenges with expanding their parking. They need to account for customer demand and real-estate costs, and they also frequently run into zoning and environmental laws. Many communities don’t want more trucks stopping nearby for the night... Lisa Mullings, chief executive of the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, says she hopes the study will encourage better planning by truck fleets...
(Photo by Kyle Granthan/The WSJ: When drivers were asked to identify problem parking regions, the mid-Atlantic area ranked first) -- Washington, DC, USA - The WSJ, by BETSY MORRIS - Aug. 21, 2015Labels: trucks' parking shortage
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