Truck Stop Industry Launches Parking App

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Truck drivers have a new option when it comes to finding parking on the road.

Leading players in the trucking and travel plaza industries joined to launch the Park My Truck mobile app. The free app allows professional drivers to locate an available space, according to the initiative's leaders: the NATSO Foundation, NATSO Inc., the American Trucking Associations (ATA) and the American Transportation Research Institute.

"Park My Truck was developed by the truck stop 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, which represent the truck stops and travel stops. 

She added: "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 truck stops in the United States and some rest areas. Participants reporting available truck parking information include independent truck stops as well as 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," Spear continued. "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."

Judy McReynolds, chair, CEO and president of ArcBest Corp., noted the Park My Truck app demonstrates the commitment the industry has to safety and operations needs of professional drivers.

"This tool will ensure that truck drivers everywhere can quickly and easily find the most convenient truck parking facilities anywhere in the country," Reynolds added.

Administered by the NATSO Foundation, Park My Truck is accessible for free via the Internet or smartphone by all professional drivers, trucking fleets, state and other administrators of highway rest areas.

Truck parking providers can contact the NATSO Foundation to establish an account to provide truck parking availability.

"The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance [CVSA] is proud to support solutions for drivers looking for available truck parking," said CVSA Executive Director Collin B. Mooney. "Hours-of-service infractions is the No. 1 driver-related violation issued by our commercial motor vehicle inspectors. We need to do everything we can to help our nation's hard-working commercial motor vehicle drivers locate safe, reliable and readily available parking to ensure they are able to get the rest they need."