Smart Parking-Management System for Commercial Vehicle Parking at Public Rest Areas

Trucks move around 70% of the freight weight in the United States. The combination of increased commercial motor vehicle traffic, tighter delivery schedules, and federally regulated limits on driving time lead to a nationally recognized problem on interstate highways in the United States, i.e.,increased demand for commercial truck parking. Unavailability of sufficient parking spaces at rest areas results in illegal and unsafe parking at entrance/exit ramps, and other unauthorized areas. The research reported in this paper, funded by the Florida DOT, sought to understand the truck parking problem in Florida, determine the supply and demand characteristics for commercial truck parking, assess technology that can be used to improve parking management, and conduct a pilot project to test a smart truck parking-management technology to make better utilization of commercial parking spaces at public rest areas.