NATSO Report Finds Rest Areas Reduce Overall Truck Parking Capacity
A NATSO study shows a relationship between public commercial parking and a reduced overall truck parking capacity along a highway. Photo:
A NATSO study shows a relationship between public commercial parking and a reduced overall truck parking capacity along a highway. Photo: DanTD
‘>
Interstate highways with private sector investment have 69% more commercial truck parking spaces per mile than those with public rest areas, according to a report issued by NATSO, an association representing truckstops and travel plazas.
The report analyzed the relationship between public commercial rest areas and the total truck parking capacity along the highway. The research, which evaluated more than 12,000 interstate miles, found that non-commercialized interstate corridors have 6.57 truck parking spaces per mile, compared to 3.88 spaces per miles on the commercialized interstate segments.
Non-commercialized interstate segments have, on average, one truck parking facility every 8.4 miles, compared with commercialized interstate segments with one facility every 12.8 miles. All public and private designated truck parking located within 1 mile of the interstates was included in the totals.
“This study highlights that commercial rest areas result in significantly fewer truck parking spaces and do not represent a viable means of expanding commercial truck parking capacity,” said Lisa Mullings, NATSO president and CEO. “This reaffirms the industry’s position that truck parking is best handled by the private sector, which provides nearly 90% of the nation’s truck parking.”
Since 1960, federal law has prohibited the sale of food, fuel and other commercial service from rest areas located directly on the Interstate Highway System to prevent the granting of monopolies along the Interstate right-of-way. Congress permitted the continued operation of commercial rest areas in states where commercial rest areas existed prior to the enactment of the law. This study evaluated those states where grandfathered commercial rest areas continue to operate.
The report was an update to a similar study published in 2010. Compared to the earlier study, NATSO found that the correlation between offering …Read the rest of this story
