ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Trucking and travel-plaza groups have officially launched a new highway safety initiative, announced in July, to help professional drivers find available truck parking.
Truck drivers who need to stop and rest will be able to use a free mobile app called Park My Truck to locate an available space, according to the National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO Inc.), the NATSO Foundation, the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI).
“Park My Truck was developed by the truckstop industry in conjunction with our trucking partners based on feedback from professional drivers and trucking companies who often describe truck parking availability as a critical need,” said Lisa Mullings, the president of NATSO and the NATSO Foundation, Alexandria, Va. “The NATSO Foundation and its allies are committed to providing America’s truck drivers with easy, up-to-date information regarding available truck parking. Working together, we can advance safety on the highways for all drivers by sharing information and helping truck drivers more easily find and utilize existing capacity.”
Park My Truck includes the total number of truck parking spaces for nearly 5,000 truckstops in the United States and some rest areas. Participants reporting available truck parking information include independent truckstops and chain locations representing 150,000 truck parking spaces.
“Finding a safe place to park is a consistent issue for drivers in our industry,” said ATA president and CEO Chris Spear. “While we would love to see the number of spaces increase, tightening state and federal highway budgets will limit the opportunity to expand parking capacity for the foreseeable future. It is important we have ways to let drivers know where the spaces currently exist, which is why this app, developed in cooperation with ATRI and NATSO, is so important. Directing drivers to safe parking spaces will give them opportunity to get the rest they need and the off-duty time they are required to have.”
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