While truck parking may not be at the top of most transportation professionals’ minds, it is a subject HNTB is highlighting at its booth – and for good reasons. Commercial truck drivers spend 30 minutes searching for a place to park their rigs, often resorting to highway shoulders, exit ramps or the more risky abandoned and commercial lots.
As average truck operating costs total almost $120/hr and there are 400,000 parking events every day, saving each driver 15 minutes during parking could amount to $4.4 billion annually. According to HNTB, shorter parking times would also reduce fuel burn by two gallons and lower greenhouse emissions by nearly 45 pounds per search — equating to 3.3 million tons of CO2 each year.
To address these issues Truck Smart Parking Services (TSPS) has teamed up with HNTB to create a wireless truck-parking network – a virtual environment providing real-time parking information for truck drivers. Sensing equipment is deployed to collect real-time parking availability information which is aggregated in the cloud and distributed through the TSPS website, smart-phone applications, road signs, Michigan Department of Transportation’s Mi Drive website and third-party data services.
• Truck parking systems will be the subject at two panel discussions at World Congress: ITS Applications in Truck Parking Availability (3:00pm today, room 140E) and State of the Art and Benefits of Real Time Information for Commercial Vehicles (8:30am Wednesday room 140E).
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