Truck Parking Statistics: What America Has Counted, and When It Counted It

Allentown Dock Door Repair Research
Last verified: September 16, 2026 · Core records: FHWA’s 2015 inventory and ATRI’s 2024 public counts; private-source year conflict documented below.

What are the key truck parking statistics?

1. ATRI’s published public-to-private truck parking ratio matches private counts in FHWA’s 2015 inventory divided by 2024 public rest-area counts in all 46 testable states, rounded to one decimal place. This is a reproducible source-year check—not recovery of an exact count from a rounded ratio. Source: Allentown Dock Door Repair Research calculation from ATRI’s state dashboard and FHWA’s 2015 Table 4. FHWA’s conflicting private-directory years are documented in the source-year note.

2. FHWA’s second Jason’s Law survey results include a 32-slide presentation published December 1, 2020, plus public-parking geospatial data linked from the agency’s program page. These are published results, not a new 2026 inventory. Source: Federal Highway Administration.

3. The United States had approximately 313,000 truck parking spaces—about 40,000 public and 273,000 private—in FHWA’s 2018–19 survey results. The figures were presented December 1, 2020. Source: FHWA, slide 8.

4. FHWA’s 2015 inventory table reports 308,920 spaces at 8,284 facilities: 36,222 public spaces at 1,908 public facilities and 272,698 private spaces at 6,376 truck stops. FHWA dates public inputs to 2013 and the DOT survey to 2014; its private-source year is inconsistent between records. Source: FHWA, 2015 Table 4, program metadata and Chapter II; facility total calculated by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research.

5. Private truck stops account for 88.27 percent of spaces in FHWA’s 2015 inventory; public facilities account for 11.73 percent. These are shares of the 308,920 spaces in that historical inventory, not current market shares. Source: Allentown Dock Door Repair Research calculation from FHWA, 2015 Table 4.

6. Forty-seven state DOTs reported a combined 30,440 public rest-area truck parking spaces in data collected in 2024. Alabama, Delaware and Rhode Island are not reported in the table. Source: ATRI/AASHTO’s state dashboard; total calculated by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research.

7. FHWA’s historical public inventory averages 18.98 spaces per facility; ATRI/AASHTO’s research published in April 2025 reports 19 truck spaces per rest area. The facility categories and survey coverage differ. Sources: calculation from FHWA, Table 4, and ATRI/AASHTO’s release.

8. The 32 major freight-origin-and-destination urbanized areas identified in FHWA’s 2018–19 survey results account for 38 percent of truck tonnage but 8.5 percent of truck parking spaces. This compares geographic shares; it does not measure a parking deficit. Source: FHWA, December 2020 presentation, slide 25.

9. In FHWA’s 2018–19 survey, 98 percent of responding truck drivers reported problems finding safe parking, and 75 percent reported problems at least weekly. The presentation does not state the response count for those individual questions. Source: FHWA, December 2020 presentation, slide 14.

10. Seventy-nine percent of truck stop operators responding to FHWA’s 2018–19 survey said they did not plan to add truck parking. This is a respondent finding, not a count of all operators or a current expansion forecast. Source: FHWA, December 2020 presentation, slide 17.

11. Tennessee is the only state reporting all eight listed amenities and all five listed safety features in ATRI’s dashboard based on 2024 state DOT responses. The entries describe state-reported provision, not an inspection of every parking space. Source: Allentown Dock Door Repair Research comparison of ATRI’s dashboard.

12. Annual rest-area service and maintenance budget per parking space ranges from $344 in Indiana to $32,982 in Virginia across 35 reporting states in ATRI’s 2024-response dashboard—a roughly 96-fold spread. The source reports budgets, not measured truck-only spending. Source: ATRI; range and multiple calculated by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research.

13. Truck parking appears in ATRI’s overall top ten concerns in every year from 2016 through 2025; it ranks fourth overall and second among driver respondents in 2025. None of the ten overall rankings shown here is first. Source: ATRI’s annual findings and 2025 release.

14. Public Law 119-75, enacted February 3, 2026, appropriates $200 million for commercial motor vehicle parking under the INFRA program. This is an appropriation, not a count of spaces constructed. Source: Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, Division D, Title I.

15. PennDOT’s January 28, 2026 announcement reports 339 spaces at 24 locations opened before the end of 2025—28.2 percent of the 1,202-space plan announced in October 2025. This is a dated delivery snapshot, not live availability. Sources: PennDOT’s January release and October plan; percentage calculated by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research.

Every figure above was checked for this edition on September 16, 2026. The observation year belongs to the figure; the verification date belongs to this reference.

On this page:
The headline finding · How many spaces are there? · Truck parking by state · What the table shows and doesn’t · How we checked ATRI’s dashboard · One space for how many drivers? · Four numbers worth a second look · Why drivers stop where they stop · What the cost estimate measures · Where parking ranks · Federal funding · Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley · Methodology · Limitations · Figures not established · How to cite this page · FAQ · Sources

Why do newer truck parking ratios still use the 2015 federal inventory?

All 46 testable public-to-private ratios in ATRI’s state dashboard reproduce from the private counts in FHWA’s 2015 inventory divided by 2024 public rest-area spaces, rounded to one decimal. ATRI discloses that historical private source; our check shows exactly how it fits the newer public observations. It does not resolve FHWA’s conflicting private-source years or establish that private parking has never been recounted elsewhere. Sources: ATRI and FHWA.

About 88 percent of the spaces in FHWA’s 2015 inventory were at private truck stops. That component came from Trucker’s Friend, a commercial truck stop directory. FHWA’s program metadata dates it to 2013, but Chapter II of the report says the team used the 2015 database. The issuer’s documents conflict on the input year; the 272,698-space count itself agrees. Program metadata; Chapter II. ATRI’s dashboard published in 2025 explicitly draws its private space counts from the 2015 report. The publication date is newer than the private observation. FHWA; ATRI.

The chain runs like this.

2015. FHWA publishes the first Jason’s Law report with a 50-state inventory table. The program metadata identifies 2013 public facility inputs. For private spaces, it identifies Trucker’s Friend 2013, while Chapter II names the 2015 database; this page keeps that conflict explicit. The state DOT survey was fielded in April 2014 with an August 2014 supplement. Totals: 36,222 public spaces, 272,698 private spaces, 308,920 in all. FHWA, Section III.

2020. FHWA presents results of the second Jason’s Law survey, fielded in 2018–19, to the National Coalition on Truck Parking. The national figures appear in the presentation: approximately 313,000 spaces, about 40,000 public and 273,000 private. Those are approximate totals attached to that survey, not exact 2026 counts. FHWA, slides 7–8.

FHWA’s program page links the second survey’s presentation in HTML and PDF and a public-parking geospatial download. It also states that no further material is expected from that survey. The presentation includes state-level comparisons; it is not accurate to say that no results or no state information were published. FHWA program page; presentation.

The narrower problem is reproducibility. The displayed national approximations and growth percentages do not reconcile against the earlier published inventory totals, and the material reviewed for this page does not establish the baseline needed to explain the difference. A missing explanation is not evidence that the private total was copied forward.

2025. ATRI and AASHTO publish research and a dashboard using public rest-area responses collected from 47 state DOTs in 2024. The dashboard combines those observations with 2022 roadway and truck-mileage denominators and private counts sourced from the 2015 Jason’s Law report. Its parts have different years even though they appear in the same row. ATRI dashboard; April 8, 2025 release.

2026. For this September 16 verification, FHWA’s truck parking program page still provides the first and second Jason’s Law survey results. This reference does not establish a newer, comparable nationwide public-plus-private inventory from the primary material checked. It therefore keeps the national total dated rather than turning the page’s verification year into a measurement year. FHWA program page.

The arithmetic problem inside the 2019 figures

FHWA’s second-survey presentation states a 6 percent increase in public spaces and an 11 percent increase in private spaces between 2014 and 2019. Test those percentages against FHWA’s earlier published inventory totals and the displayed endpoints do not line up. Both parts of the source record remain below. FHWA, slide 8; 2015 Table 4.

Table 1. The stated 2014-to-2019 growth tested against FHWA’s published inventory totals

Source: Allentown Dock Door Repair Research calculations from FHWA, 2015 Table 4 and FHWA, December 1, 2020 presentation, slide 8. Implied totals are rounded to whole spaces; published endpoints are approximate. Verified September 16, 2026.

Working backward from the displayed endpoints instead gives approximately +10.4 percent for public spaces and +0.11 percent for private spaces—not 6 and 11. These calculations test the published figures against each other. They do not establish a corrected historical growth series.

The private line is the larger numerical discrepancy. An 11 percent increase from 272,698 would produce about 302,695, not about 273,000. A revised baseline, different coverage or a reporting error could change the comparison, but the reviewed material does not establish which explanation applies. The closeness of 272,698 and 273,000 does not prove that a new private inventory was not collected. We publish the arithmetic and leave the cause unresolved rather than picking an explanation.

How many truck parking spaces are in the United States?

FHWA’s 2018–19 survey results report approximately 313,000 spaces nationwide: about 40,000 public and 273,000 private. The detailed 2015 federal table reports 308,920 spaces from older inputs, while ATRI’s 2024 state responses total 30,440 public rest-area spaces across 47 states. These are different datasets, not interchangeable answers or a continuous time series. FHWA 2019 results; FHWA 2015 inventory; ATRI.

A complete current national count was not established for this reference. That is different from claiming that no newer count, commercial inventory or regional dataset exists anywhere. The numbers below are the source-defined national figures this page can document and reproduce.

Writers most often need one of three numbers. Which one depends on what the sentence is doing.

Table 2. National truck parking figures, with what each one measures

Source: FHWA, 2015 Table 4; FHWA, December 2020 presentation; ATRI/AASHTO’s dashboard and release. ATRI total summed by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research. Verified September 16, 2026.

One warning worth stating before anyone builds a trend out of this: 40,000 public spaces in the 2019 survey and 30,440 public rest-area spaces in 2024 are not two points on a demonstrated like-for-like line. The sources have different reporting coverage and do not supply a harmonized facility panel. The gap between them is not a measured decline.

The same discipline applies to the word “public.” The older federal table is labelled public truck parking facilities; ATRI’s newer column is expressly truck parking spaces at public rest areas. Before comparing a particular state, a researcher would need to establish which facilities each source included, not assume the two labels identify exactly the same sites. FHWA; ATRI.

What does the truck parking data show by state?

The table below brings the two state datasets together without combining their observation years. The left columns are the inventory published by FHWA in 2015, covering public facilities and private truck stops; the right columns are ATRI’s 2024 public rest-area observations and its published mixed-year ratios. The four underlying federal count columns reconcile with FHWA’s printed totals. FHWA; ATRI.

The joined table and the checks are this publication’s work. The underlying inventories belong to their named producers; no claim is made that this is the first comparison ever assembled or that a new nationwide survey was conducted.

Table 3. Truck parking spaces by state: FHWA’s 2015 inventory and ATRI’s 2024 rest-area counts

Source: FHWA, 2015 Table 4—public metadata dated 2013 and DOT survey in 2014; *private data year is labelled 2013 by FHWA’s program page and 2015 by Chapter II, so no unique private observation year is assigned; ATRI/AASHTO’s dashboard—2024 public rest-area responses, 2022 NHS mileage and historical private spaces sourced from the 2015 report. In 1:r, r equals historical private spaces divided by 2024 public rest-area spaces, rounded to one decimal. A dash preserves an unreported or inapplicable source value; it is not zero. Verified September 16, 2026.

Dataset files, edition September 16, 2026: 50-state CSV · JSON with state records and calculations · Source inputs · Reproduction script · Data dictionary · Regional evidence CSV · Primary-source register · Complete dataset ZIP.

The CSV contains all 50 states and 29 fields: both historical facility counts and space counts; 2024 rest-area spaces; published road-mileage and truck-mileage ratios with their denominator years; amenities; safety features; the reported annual budget metric; the private/public quotient; source coverage; the ratio check; explicitly non-comparable numerical differences; four roadway spot-checks; source URLs; and verification date. The JSON also contains the national totals, shares, growth reconciliation, employment comparisons, historical cost-model arithmetic, issue-rank series and Pennsylvania calculations. Empty CSV cells and JSON null preserve missing values.

Reading the blanks and the zero

Three states—Alabama, Delaware and Rhode Island—did not provide data to the 2024 ATRI/AASHTO survey. Their cells are blank, not zero. The older federal table reports facilities and spaces in those states, but its historical observations do not supply the missing 2024 values. ATRI; FHWA.

Hawaii reports zero truck parking spaces at public rest areas in ATRI’s table. That is a reported value for that specific variable, not a statement that Hawaii has no truck parking anywhere. FHWA’s older table prints dashes for Hawaii; those dashes are kept as missing values here rather than converted into observations. ATRI; FHWA.

Alaska has no 2013–14 public figure in the federal table but does report 70 rest-area spaces in 2024. Its private count can be used in the ratio check, while its missing historical public count excludes it from the matched public-column comparison. Different calculations therefore have different eligible-state counts. FHWA; ATRI.

What jumps out of the 2024 columns

Three observations can be calculated from ATRI’s published inputs.

Indiana has the highest published road-normalized supply and the lowest reported budget-per-space value. Its 37.5 rest-area truck spaces per 100 NHS road miles is the largest published ratio among the reporting states. Its annual rest-area service and maintenance budget metric is $344 per parking space, the smallest reported budget value. The road ratio combines 2024 parking with 2022 road mileage; the budget metric does not establish lowest total spending or greatest operating efficiency. ATRI.

The reported budget spread is roughly 96-fold. Among the 35 states with a budget value, the range is $344 in Indiana to $32,982 in Virginia. Dividing the endpoints gives 95.88. The dashboard’s unit is annual rest-area service and maintenance budget per parking space—not a measured cost for maintaining an individual truck space and not a parking construction price. ATRI; calculation by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research.

One state reports the maximum on both driver-facing measures. Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia report all eight listed amenities. Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico and Tennessee report all five safety features. Only Tennessee appears in both groups. These are state-reported feature counts, not findings that every facility offers every feature or that one state is safer than another. ATRI.

ATRI’s eight amenities are restrooms, lighting, pet relief areas, trash receptacles, dump stations, vending machines, walking trails and 24-hour security. Its five safety features are lighting, fencing, cameras, regular patrols and emergency call buttons. The lists define what the feature counts mean; they do not measure the effectiveness of any individual feature. ATRI.

What does the state table show—and what does it not show?

The two halves of Table 3 can be compared as published observations, but their difference is not a measured change in parking supply. Across 45 states with both a historical public figure and a 2024 rest-area figure, the totals are 35,535 and 30,370: a numerical gap of 5,165 spaces. Different coverage, reporting practices and actual facility changes may all matter; these sources do not isolate their contributions. FHWA; ATRI; calculations in the dataset.

Here is the trap, stated as plainly as we can.

Twenty states have a higher number in the 2024 column and twenty-five have a lower number. That 5,165-space gap is not a measured loss of parking. It is also not established to be “mostly” a scope difference. The available figures do not tell us how much comes from scope, how much from reporting changes, or how much from additions and closures.

Pennsylvania is a clear illustration. Its federal 2013–14 public figure is 1,569 spaces across 66 facilities. Its 2024 ATRI rest-area figure is 784. Read as change, that looks like a large reduction in public parking; read correctly, it is a pair of differently defined observations requiring a facility-level reconciliation before any trend claim. FHWA; ATRI.

What the table is good for: finding a state’s reported public rest-area figure with its year attached, finding its historical private figure with its year attached, and seeing immediately that the two do not describe a simultaneous inventory.

What it cannot settle: how many spaces were physically removed, whether every older public facility meets the newer rest-area definition, or how much unmet overnight demand exists. The downloadable difference columns are explicitly labelled not change and not growth. They show the arithmetic without giving it a meaning the inputs cannot support.

A row with a larger newer number deserves the same discipline as a row with a smaller one. A gain cannot be declared from incompatible coverage any more than a loss can. Matching a state name is sufficient for joining records; it is not sufficient for proving that the same facilities were counted twice.

How did we check ATRI’s published public-to-private ratios?

We divided each available private space count in FHWA’s 2015 table by the same state’s 2024 public rest-area count from ATRI, then rounded the result to one decimal place. All 46 eligible results match ATRI’s published ratios. That confirms arithmetic consistency with the private source ATRI already discloses; it does not recover an exact hidden count by multiplying a rounded ratio. FHWA; ATRI.

This is not a criticism of ATRI. ATRI states the source in its own methodology note. What the check establishes is the mixture of observation years inside a number that might otherwise be read as a current public/private comparison.

Table 4. Checking the historical private input behind ATRI’s published ratio

Source: Allentown Dock Door Repair Research calculations from ATRI’s dashboard and FHWA, 2015 Table 4. Alabama, Delaware and Rhode Island have no ATRI row; Hawaii has no published ratio and a zero public denominator. The historical private source-year conflict is documented in FHWA’s program page and Chapter II. All 46 checks are in the downloadable CSV and JSON. Verified September 16, 2026.

The distinction between checking and recovering matters. Pennsylvania’s printed ratio is 1:11.9. Multiplying 11.9 by 784 produces 9,329.6, not the source count of 9,363. Dividing 9,363 by 784 and rounding to one decimal produces 11.9. Many nearby private counts would produce that same rounded ratio; the exact historical count comes from FHWA, not reverse engineering.

We also checked four published road-mileage ratios against FHWA’s 2022 Table HM-41 total column. Arizona’s 649 spaces divided by 3,212 NHS miles, multiplied by 100, gives 20.21 against ATRI’s 20.2. Arkansas gives 9.04 against 9.0; California gives 8.25 against 8.3; Alaska gives 3.14 against 3.1. All four agree at the source’s one-decimal precision. FHWA HM-41; ATRI.

Those are four denominator spot-checks, not a claim that we recalculated every published highway ratio. The page retains ATRI’s published road-normalized values and identifies the 2022 denominator, rather than silently substituting a newer road year.

What this means for anyone quoting a public-to-private truck parking ratio: write the years with it. The displayed form is 2024 public : historical private; the numeric value after the colon is private spaces in FHWA’s 2015 report divided by 2024 public spaces. FHWA’s own 2013-versus-2015 directory-year conflict prevents assigning a single verified private observation year. It is not a current public/private market share, and it should not be used to infer how many private spaces opened after the historical inventory.

One truck parking space for how many drivers?

The result depends on which employment count is divided by which parking inventory. Dividing BLS’s May 2025 heavy-and-tractor-trailer employment estimate of 2,062,040 by FHWA’s approximately 313,000 spaces gives 6.6 employment positions per historical parking space; a broader three-occupation sum gives 11.0. Neither calculation measures simultaneous overnight demand or establishes the original derivation of the frequently repeated one-space-per-11-drivers estimate. BLS OEWS; FHWA; ATRI’s published estimate.

Back into the arithmetic: 313,000 × 11 = 3,443,000 implied drivers or employment positions. Then test the same parking denominator against federal occupational counts. That exercise shows sensitivity to the population definition; it does not identify the population used by an earlier author.

Table 5. Employment positions per historical truck parking space under different BLS counts

Source: Allentown Dock Door Repair Research calculations from BLS, May 2025 OEWS, Table 1 and the Occupational Outlook Handbook. The denominator in every row is FHWA’s approximately 313,000 spaces from the 2018–19 survey results. These are mixed-year illustrations, not current occupancy or shortage ratios. Verified September 16, 2026.

The third row rounds to 11, but that does not prove that every published “one per 11” estimate was built from these occupations. It is a 2025 employment illustration against an older parking approximation. The original population, reference date and derivation of that widely repeated estimate are not established by matching a rounded result.

BLS’s programs also differ. OEWS covers wage-and-salary employment and excludes the self-employed; the employment projections used by the Occupational Outlook Handbook include self-employment. Neither count is a census of trucks simultaneously needing overnight interstate parking. Some heavy-truck work is local, and an occupational total alone does not identify route length, work schedule or parking demand. BLS definitions; Occupational Outlook Handbook.

The numerical denominator is parking spaces. The numerator is the chosen employment count. Keeping those labels straight matters: a sentence about all commercial drivers, all employed heavy-truck drivers and long-haul drivers needing rest is making three different population claims.

Where the spaces are, and where the trucks are

The spaces-per-driver comparison is national. FHWA’s second-survey presentation also compares geographic shares of truck travel and parking supply, which is a different and more spatially specific question.

Table 5b. Truck travel versus truck parking supply in FHWA’s 2018–19 survey results

Source: FHWA, December 1, 2020 presentation, slide 25. The presentation uses urbanized areas of 50,000 or more people and urban clusters of 2,500 to fewer than 50,000; these are the definitions attached to that historical comparison, not an assertion about current Census classification. Verified September 16, 2026.

The sharper geographic contrast on that slide concerns 32 major freight-origin-and-destination urbanized areas: 38 percent of truck tonnage and 8.5 percent of parking spaces. Dividing those shares gives about 4.5. That is a comparison of shares with different units—not evidence that those places need 4.5 times as much parking, or a count of legal spaces missing near warehouses. FHWA, slide 25; calculation in the dataset.

The useful conclusion is narrower: national parking supply and national freight activity are not distributed in the same proportions. The figures support discussion of geographic mismatch; they do not establish where a particular driver must stop, how full a particular site is, or whether a state’s aggregate supply meets overnight demand.

Which four truck parking figures need a second look?

Four figures in this reference require their original definitions to travel with them: a survey average of 143 spaces, a public-facility average near 19, a historical $4,600 earnings model and the published growth percentages. None becomes more accurate when its year, population or method is removed. The arithmetic below separates what each source actually reports from conclusions the figures do not establish.

The 143-space figure describes responding truck stop operators

FHWA’s 2019 results presentation reports an average of 143 spaces per facility in its truck-stop-owner-and-operator section. The survey received 524 operator responses overall, but the presentation does not state the number answering the capacity question. Treat 143 as a reported respondent average—not an independently established average for every U.S. truck stop. FHWA, slides 7 and 17.

The older inventory gives a different statistic: 272,698 private spaces ÷ 6,376 private truck stops = 42.77 spaces per stop in the directory-based inventory published in 2015. Its private source year is disputed within FHWA’s own documentation. The respondent average is about 3.3 times that historical inventory average. The populations and years differ; the gap does not by itself prove that either source is wrong or establish the direction of sample bias. FHWA, 2015 Table 4; calculation by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research.

The consistency check is useful, but only within those limits. Dividing the later approximate private total of 273,000 by 143 implies about 1,909 facilities. That is not the earlier inventory’s 6,376 stops. It shows why the later respondent average should not be combined mechanically with an older facility universe to create a national total. It does not prove that the survey average “cannot” be representative without information about sampling and facility coverage.

Two public-facility averages round to 19, but they do not establish a growth trend

Divide FHWA’s historical public inventory by its facility count: 36,222 ÷ 1,908 = 18.98 spaces per public facility. In research published April 8, 2025, ATRI and AASHTO report an average of 19 truck spaces per rest area, including 25 in the South and 15 in the Northeast. FHWA; ATRI/AASHTO release.

The denominators are close in ordinary language but not established to be identical: public truck parking facilities in the earlier inventory, rest areas in the newer research. Stated as two published averages that round to the same number, the comparison holds. Stated as proof that rest areas have not grown in eleven years, it does not.

An average can remain similar while individual facilities expand, close or enter the reporting universe. Without matched facility records, the two averages cannot isolate any of those changes. No unchanged-capacity conclusion is made here.

The $4,600 figure is a 2016 model, not measured time spent searching

ATRI’s December 2016 diary research reports roughly 9,300 forgone revenue miles and $4,600 in reduced annual earnings associated with stopping early to secure parking. The 56-minute input concerns remaining driving time surrendered by parking early—not 56 minutes spent physically searching. ATRI’s release.

The original report records 148 completed diaries, 2,035 driver-days and 4,763 stops, collected June through September 2016. Its methods section calls the 56-minute value a median, while its conclusion and release describe it as an average. That source-label conflict is preserved here rather than silently choosing one. ATRI report record; original report access copy, Section 4.42.

The model uses a per-mile wage assumption, not annual pay as its earnings multiplier. Its $42,500 annual-pay figure provides comparison context. The cost section sets out the printed inputs and distinguishes the historical estimate from any current-dollar claim.

The stated growth percentages need an identified baseline

As shown in Table 1, FHWA’s stated 6 percent public and 11 percent private increases do not reproduce from its earlier published national totals and later displayed approximations. The two source statements are retained; no replacement growth rate is presented as FHWA’s corrected result. FHWA, 2015 Table 4; 2019 results presentation.

An unexplained discrepancy is not permission to invent a reconciliation. Until the applicable baseline and coverage are established, the endpoint arithmetic belongs in a discrepancy table—not a chart of measured national parking growth.

How do hours-of-service rules affect truck parking?

Federal hours-of-service limits constrain when a property-carrying commercial driver may continue driving, making planned rest and legal parking closely connected. FMCSA’s general rules include an 11-hour driving limit after 10 consecutive hours off duty and a 14-consecutive-hour driving window after coming on duty. Exceptions and qualifying alternatives matter; an expiring clock does not authorize parking on an unsafe or prohibited site. FMCSA’s rule summary.

The ordinary property-carrier summary also requires a 30-minute non-driving interruption after 8 cumulative hours of driving without such an interruption, and restricts driving after 60 or 70 on-duty hours in 7 or 8 consecutive days. The qualifying 30 minutes can include on-duty time when the driver is not driving. The 14-hour window is elapsed time, not simply 14 accumulated on-duty hours. FMCSA.

These are the general rules, not an individualized determination of a driver’s legal hours. FMCSA’s summary describes exceptions and alternatives, including short-haul, sleeper-berth and adverse-driving-condition provisions. Operational decisions require the applicable rule and the driver’s actual duty record, not a simplified statistic from a parking article. FMCSA.

FHWA’s 2018–19 survey asked state commercial motor vehicle safety agencies where unauthorized truck parking occurred. Their responses describe reported locations, not an instruction to use those locations and not a count of crashes.

Table 6. Locations where agencies reported frequent unauthorized truck parking

Source: FHWA, December 1, 2020 presentation, slide 12. Forty-five state commercial motor vehicle safety enforcement agencies responded to the survey overall; the presentation does not specify the individual-question denominator. Agencies could report more than one location type, so these shares are not a distribution of all unauthorized parking stops. Verified September 16, 2026.

The location percentages should not be rewritten as “58 percent of illegally parked trucks are on ramps.” They describe agencies reporting a condition. They also do not establish that a particular ramp permits parking or that a site announced for future parking is already available.

FMCSA’s August 27, 2026 update reported completion of pre-tests for flexible sleeper-berth and split-duty-period programs, with full pilot programs planned for 2027. Research participation and a possible future rule change are not the same as a general change to the rules applying to all drivers. FMCSA’s dated pilot update.

What does the historical truck parking cost estimate actually measure?

ATRI’s familiar approximately $4,600 per driver per year figure is a December 2016 illustrative earnings model associated with parking early. It is not a measured 2026 loss, a parking fee, or a direct tally of money lost while searching for a space. The published figure and the arithmetic behind it must stay attached to their historical assumptions. ATRI’s release and report, Section 4.42.

The report’s printed assumptions are 56 minutes of remaining driving time forgone per working day, 250 working days a year, an operating speed of 39.98 miles per hour and a driver wage cost of $0.499 per mile. Applying those inputs gives about 9,329 potential miles and $4,655 annually; the source describes the results approximately as 9,300 miles and $4,600. The downloadable calculation retains both the printed source estimates and the direct result from the printed inputs. Original ATRI report; calculation by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research.

The calculation is:

Those products do not turn the model into measured earnings. They depend on the assumed number of working days, the assumed operating speed, the mileage-pay assumption and the premise that the surrendered driving time could otherwise earn revenue. The modest difference between the source’s approximate dollar figure and the direct product should not be presented as a newly measured loss or an inflation adjustment.

The report’s $42,500 annual-pay comparison is not the multiplier used in the mileage-based model. BLS separately reports a $59,710 mean annual wage for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in May 2025. Replacing one annual wage with the other would not update the parking model’s daily time loss, work schedule, operating speed or pay method. ATRI report; BLS OEWS.

For a current national cost estimate, a researcher would need more than a newer wage. The required inputs would include a defined population, a relevant observation period, measured or explicitly assumed unused time, compensation rules and a defensible method for annualizing the effect. This page does not manufacture that estimate by multiplying the old per-driver amount across an unrelated occupational count.

The source’s inconsistent use of median and average for the 56-minute input is another reason to preserve the model’s exact context. The statistic remains about unused driving time after stopping early, regardless of which summary label appears. It should never be converted into “drivers spend 56 minutes searching every day.” ATRI release; report methods.

No current industry-wide dollar loss is asserted here. The historical estimate is useful as an example of how parking can affect potential earnings; it is not proof of the cost incurred by every driver or every carrier today.

Where has truck parking ranked among industry concerns?

Truck parking appears in ATRI’s overall top ten in every year from 2016 through 2025, with rankings from second to fifth in the decade shown below. In 2025 it ranks fourth overall and second among driver respondents. These are survey concern rankings, not a count of missing spaces or a safety score. ATRI’s annual findings; 2025 release.

The distinction between the overall list and the driver list matters. A combined stakeholder ranking answers a different question from a driver-only ranking. The page reports the verified comparison without treating either as a measure of physical parking supply.

Table 7. Truck parking’s overall rank among industry issues, 2016–2025

Source: American Transportation Research Institute’s dated annual findings listed in each row. The 2020 access source is an ATRI-authored release, not a reporter’s reconstruction. The 2025 release reports more than 4,200 participating industry stakeholders; that response count does not apply to the other years. Verified September 16, 2026.

In the ten-year series shown, truck parking never ranks first overall. That is a statement about this table, not a claim about every survey conducted by every organization or about the views of every driver. Its 2025 driver rank is second even though its overall rank is fourth. ATRI.

Movement in a concern ranking is also relative to the other subjects in the survey. A drop from second to fourth does not establish that more parking was built, that parking became easier to find, or that the amount of unmet demand fell. Those would require supply and demand evidence, not just an ordinal change.

ATRI and AASHTO’s separate rest-area research addresses the provision side: it gathered state DOT information on land acquisition, construction, maintenance budgets and amenities, with parking records from 47 participating states. The concern survey and the inventory research complement each other, but they do not have the same population, denominator or purpose. ATRI/AASHTO release.

The current table therefore keeps the concern series separate from the parking inventory. A reader can quote either, with its source and year, without treating a ranking as a shortage estimate.

Which federal truck parking funding amounts are enacted, and which are proposals?

Public Law 119-75 appropriates $200 million for commercial motor vehicle parking under INFRA. The introduced versions of H.R. 1659 and H.R. 8870 separately propose multiyear authorizations; their proposed totals are not additional enacted appropriations. Table 8 identifies the specific legal text and fiscal period rather than combining unlike funding stages. Public Law 119-75; H.R. 1659 introduced text; H.R. 8870 introduced text.

An authorization, an appropriation, a grant award and an opened parking space are different records. A dollar total at one stage should not be converted into a count of completed spaces without project-level delivery information.

Table 8. Federal truck parking funding records checked September 16, 2026

Source: The enacted law, introduced bill texts and CRS report linked in the table. Five-year totals calculated by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research from the annual amounts in the identified versions. Verified September 16, 2026.

The enacted 2026 appropriation specifies commercial motor vehicle parking under 23 U.S.C. 117 and restricts fees for parking in spaces funded under the provision. H.R. 1659’s introduced text likewise includes restrictions on charging drivers for use of parking facilities funded under its proposed program. These are descriptions of the respective provisions, not a statement that every public or private truck parking space must be free. P.L. 119-75; H.R. 1659.

The bill-number and funding-period question is resolved for the version used here: H.R. 1659, 119th Congress, introduced text, $151 million a year for fiscal years 2025 through 2029. A different Congress, amended version or similarly titled proposal needs its own citation. It should not be silently substituted into this row.

Neither proposed multiyear total is added to the enacted $200 million to create a “total available” figure. Nor is a proposed authorization treated as an opening announcement. This page records the amounts and legal stages separately so the funding figures remain usable without implying a legislative result the cited version does not establish.

What is documented about truck parking in Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley?

PennDOT announced 1,202 designated spaces at 133 locations in October 2025, with delivery planned by the end of 2026. Its January 28, 2026 release reports 339 spaces at 24 locations opened before the end of 2025, equal to 28.2 percent of that plan. Four listed Lehigh Valley ramp locations total 18 planned spaces, but they are not a complete count of the region’s program allocation or parking supply. PennDOT plan; delivery announcement; planning list.

PennDOT describes designating spaces on suitable interstate on-ramps, at weigh stations and at other locations within existing highway property. This is not simply a list of new full-service rest areas. The type of location, its opening status and its capacity must remain separate fields. PennDOT.

Table 9. Pennsylvania’s plan and its January 2026 delivery announcement

Source: PennDOT, October 6, 2025 and January 28, 2026; PennDOT planning list; ATRI’s dashboard. Averages and percentages calculated by Allentown Dock Door Repair Research. January delivery status is not a live September availability check. Verified September 16, 2026.

At nine spaces per planned location, the program’s average listed site is smaller than ATRI/AASHTO’s reported 19-space average rest area. The comparison describes different facility categories, not a standardized rest-area construction program. A designated ramp or weigh-station location need not provide the services or amenities of a full rest area. PennDOT; ATRI/AASHTO.

The 1,202-space plan is numerically larger than Pennsylvania’s 784 rest-area spaces in ATRI’s 2024 table. That is not 153 percent measured growth. The plan covers a different mix of sites and a later delivery period; it should not simply be added to the 784 as though both sources formed a reconciled statewide inventory.

PennDOT’s January release separately states that the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is evaluating more than 600 additional spaces and has invested more than $30 million in truck parking expansion at service plazas over the preceding two decades. These are separately described initiatives, not 600 verified openings to add to the 339-space announcement. PennDOT’s January 2026 release.

The Lehigh Valley locations

PennDOT’s planning list contains four Lehigh Valley ramp entries that sum to 18 spaces: five in Lehigh County and thirteen in Northampton County. The relevant row counts were checked against the primary listing, but the document did not return a consistent single edition across text and page-image retrieval. These remain qualified planning records, not an assertion of current opening status. PennDOT planning list.

Table 10. Four planned Lehigh Valley truck parking ramp locations

Source: PennDOT, Planned Additional Truck Parking. The listed Exit 75 entries sum to eight spaces; the four entries sum to eighteen. No secondary news account is used to establish these values. Source rows checked September 16, 2026; current opening status not established.

● Verification note. These values are compiled from the issuing agency’s planning list. Text and rendered pages did not consistently identify the same document edition during retrieval, so the entries are not treated as live opening confirmations. The unresolved issue is current edition and status—not permission to replace a missing status with “open.” A planned listing is not authorization to park.

Separately, PennDOT announced the opening of truck parking at the William Penn Highway park-and-ride in Bethlehem Township, Northampton County, on October 9, 2025. That announcement does not state a space count. It is an opening record for another identified location, not evidence that the four ramp entries exhaust the Lehigh Valley’s program sites. PennDOT, District 5.

What the 18 ramp spaces do—and do not—measure

The defensible statement is precise: four identified Lehigh Valley ramp listings contain 18 planned spaces. Their sum is reproducible from the list. Calling that sum the region’s entire allocation would go beyond the evidence, particularly when PennDOT separately announced the William Penn Highway location.

The local relevance does not depend on inventing a county deficit. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission identifies a regional freight plan adopted December 18, 2024, and the Eastern Pennsylvania Freight Alliance’s plan includes truck operations and parking among its strategies. Those primary planning records support the regional context; they do not supply a complete, current Lehigh or Northampton County parking census for this page. LVPC; Eastern Pennsylvania Freight Alliance.

No county-wide total is asserted for either home county. Five and thirteen are county subtotals of the four selected ramp entries, not totals for every public facility, private stop, warehouse lot or designated parking area in those counties. The unknown capacity in the separate William Penn Highway announcement stays unknown; it is not entered as zero.

A county inventory would need a declared facility universe, deduplicated locations, verified capacities and a common status date. Combining a plan, a single opening release and an older state rest-area total would not produce that inventory. This record register deliberately keeps those evidence types apart.

Background

PennDOT’s releases connect the expansion work to the State Transportation Advisory Committee’s 2023 truck parking study and recommendations involving suitable state-owned property. They also describe a Truck Parking Task Force and a public truck parking layer on 511PA. Those are program and information resources; a dated planning row here is not a substitute for current agency location information. PennDOT’s October release and January release.

How was this truck parking dataset assembled and checked?

This page joins published state records and performs reproducible arithmetic on them; it does not report a new survey or field inspection. Its original evidence is the joined table, the 46-state ratio check, the source reconciliation and the dated Pennsylvania record comparison. Source estimates and model outputs remain labelled as such rather than being presented as direct measurements.

What was collected, from where, and when

All source checking for this edition was completed September 16, 2026. The verification date records the research pass, not a new observation of every facility or a new survey response.

FHWA’s 2015 report, Section III, Table 4. The state inputs retain all 50 rows and the four count columns used here: public facilities, public spaces, private truck stops and private spaces. The accompanying program page dates public geospatial inputs to 2013, while the report describes state surveys in 2014. The private input year is internally inconsistent in FHWA’s documentation: its program page identifies Trucker’s Friend 2013; Chapter II says the research team used the 2015 database. The count is recorded under the 2015 report, with the observation-year conflict explicit. Table 4; program metadata; Chapter II.

FHWA’s second-survey presentation and program page. The December 1, 2020 presentation supplies the approximate national counts, growth percentages, driver and operator response findings, unauthorized-location percentages and urban/rural shares used here. Relevant tables and figures were checked against the rendered PDF as well as the agency’s HTML text. The program page also links public geospatial data; the presentation is not described as the sole published output. HTML presentation; PDF; program page.

ATRI/AASHTO’s state dashboard. The compilation retains the 47 reported rows and the columns used in this reference: rest-area truck spaces, published spaces per 100 NHS miles, published spaces per million truck vehicle-miles, amenities, safety features, annual budget per parking space and the published public/private ratio. The source specifies 2024 DOT data, 2022 roadway and vehicle-mileage denominators and private counts from the 2015 Jason’s Law report. ATRI.

ATRI’s annual issue findings and historical diary research. The concern series is checked against ATRI’s dated releases rather than represented as a full-report review of the 2025 publication. The 2016 diary study’s headline findings are checked against ATRI’s release, and its detailed sample and model are checked in an access copy of the original ATRI report. No interviews or underlying driver diary records were obtained by this publication. Annual source records; 2016 release; report record; report access copy.

BLS, FHWA and FMCSA. Employment and wage figures come from May 2025 OEWS and the Occupational Outlook Handbook, with the program definitions kept separate. FHWA’s 2022 HM-41 supplies the four roadway denominator spot-checks. The hours-of-service summary and pilot status come from FMCSA, not from carrier advice or a secondary summary. BLS OEWS; OOH; BLS definitions; HM-41; FMCSA rules; pilot update.

PennDOT and federal legal records. The Pennsylvania record distinguishes plans, dated opening announcements, unknown capacity and unresolved current status. Federal funding amounts come from the enacted public law and explicitly identified introduced bill versions. No bill is treated as enacted solely because its introduced text proposes funding. PennDOT records; law; H.R. 1659; H.R. 8870.

Access limitations are part of the record. Direct retrieval of ATRI’s site was blocked during this pass, so its dashboard and several releases were checked through indexed text of the publisher’s own pages. The detailed 2016 method was read in a third-party-hosted copy of ATRI’s original report, not a third-party summary; the official publication record is also linked. PennDOT’s planning PDF produced inconsistent text/page editions, which is disclosed beside the affected rows. These access paths are not represented as facility inspections or unrestricted access to every underlying dataset.

Integrity checks and missing values

The four federal count columns reconcile with FHWA’s printed totals: 1,908 public facilities; 36,222 public spaces; 6,376 private truck stops; 272,698 private spaces. Public plus private spaces equals 308,920, and public plus private facilities equals 8,284. The ATRI rest-area column sums to 30,440 across 47 reported states. The reproduction script verifies those results. FHWA; ATRI.

A totals check detects discrepancies in aggregate; by itself it cannot rule out two offsetting transcription errors. The checks here accompany comparison against the source rows, explicit preservation of missing cells and read-back tests of the exported CSV. The release does not claim that one checksum proves every aspect of a source is correct.

Missing values stay missing. JSON uses null; CSV uses an empty cell. Hawaii’s reported zero in the ATRI rest-area column remains numeric zero. Where only one historical component is reported, the downloadable sum is labelled a sum of reported components, not a complete state total with the missing category assumed to be zero.

The ratios, matched-column comparison and budget range have different eligible populations: 46 states for the private/public check, 45 for the two-public-column comparison and 35 for the budget range. Each calculation publishes its own denominator rather than borrowing the headline 47-state response count.

How the derived figures were produced

Private/public ratio check: historical private spaces from FHWA’s 2015 Table 4 ÷ 2024 public rest-area spaces, rounded to one decimal to match ATRI’s display. A match tests consistency with the disclosed input; multiplying the rounded display by a count is retained only as a diagnostic and is not an exact recovered inventory.

Spaces per facility: published spaces ÷ published facility count within the same inventory and category. The older inventory average and the later respondent average are not merged.

Public and private shares: the relevant historical component ÷ the historical total. Neither share is described as a 2026 market share.

Growth reconciliation: the earlier printed count × one plus the stated growth rate, compared with the later approximate total. Endpoint-implied percentages are separately labelled arithmetic on displayed totals, not corrected official growth estimates.

Employment per space: each named BLS employment estimate ÷ approximately 313,000 historical spaces. The May 2025 combined count is the sum of three distinct occupations: heavy and tractor-trailer, light-truck and driver/sales. These illustrative ratios do not estimate simultaneous demand.

Budget comparison: maximum reported annual budget-per-space value ÷ minimum among the 35 populated entries. It compares the metric published by ATRI, not total state spending, audited operating cost or facility quality.

Pennsylvania calculations: announced openings ÷ the 1,202-space plan; spaces ÷ locations for each separately dated snapshot; and sums of the four named ramp listings. The plan/older-rest-area ratio is labelled a scale comparison, not growth. The William Penn Highway announcement has no capacity value in that release and is not assigned zero.

Rounding: calculations use decimal arithmetic and round only for display. Published rounded values are kept separate from recomputed values. The 2016 model’s published approximations are retained alongside the direct product of its printed assumptions, rather than made artificially identical.

Verification tiers, downloads and version control

★ means the precise dated claim is checked against the primary record. It does not mean a location was visited or that a past opening remains available today. ● means a value is compiled from a primary listing but the specified edition/current-status issue remains unresolved; that issue is described beside the record rather than buried in a generic disclaimer.

The dataset files contain the 50-state CSV, the JSON compilation, the source inputs, the data dictionary and the standard-library Python script. Running the script with its input file regenerates the CSV and JSON and checks the totals, 46 ratio matches, four roadway spot-checks and exported derived fields. It does not need a bank of undisclosed numbers, an API key or a connection to the original websites to reproduce this frozen edition.

The source URLs permit a separate source re-check; the input file permits arithmetic reproduction. Those are different tasks. Re-running a script against frozen inputs is not a new verification of the live sources, and it does not warrant changing the last-verified date.

What changes when a new source appears

A new inventory requires a new dataset edition with its own observation year and coverage. Existing state columns are not silently overwritten, and a newer private count is not inserted into a historical ratio without relabelling the comparison. A new opening record changes site status only when it identifies the same location and supports that status.

Revisions to a source-year interpretation are recorded without changing the underlying count unless the issuer also corrects the count. This edition does that explicitly for FHWA’s conflicting private-directory years. The page, table notes, CSV field names and JSON metadata use the same interpretation.

What can this dataset not tell you?

This is a source-defined supply reference, not a live parking system or a measured national shortage model. It combines dated inventories, survey findings, historical modelling and project records without treating them as the same kind of evidence. Its main limits concern time, scope, missing values and current facility status.

A current national total is not established here. The approximately 313,000-space figure belongs to FHWA’s second survey, presented in December 2020. It is not relabelled as the number of spaces open on September 16, 2026. A failure to establish a newer total in this pass is not proof that no newer inventory exists anywhere. FHWA program page and survey results.

The private inventory’s exact observation year conflicts within FHWA’s own documentation. The program metadata says Trucker’s Friend 2013, while Chapter II names the 2015 database. The private counts in the 2015 report remain reproducible, but this page does not resolve that conflict by declaring either year uniquely correct. Program page; Chapter II.

The older and newer public state columns are not a time series. They have different reporting coverage and are not a matched facility panel. Their numerical difference does not measure openings, closures, gains or losses. See what the state comparison means.

Three states are absent from ATRI’s reported 2024 table. Alabama, Delaware and Rhode Island are not assigned zero. Hawaii’s reported zero applies only to the named public-rest-area variable. ATRI.

Counted capacity is not available capacity. FHWA’s presentation includes operators’ descriptions of overcrowding and utilization, but the downloadable state table is not a time-stamped occupancy dataset. It does not say whether a space is vacant tonight, reserved, restricted, temporarily closed or suitable for a particular vehicle. FHWA, slide 17.

Survey-wide responses are not always question-specific denominators. FHWA reports 11,696 driver responses, 524 operator responses and 45 state safety-agency responses overall. Those totals are not assigned to every percentage or average without an item-specific response count. FHWA, slide 7.

No shortage is quantified on this page. A road-normalized count describes supply per unit of road. It is not a deficit, and a higher or lower value does not by itself establish how hard parking is to find. The employment and freight-share comparisons also do not measure simultaneous parking demand.

The cost figure is a historical model. The roughly $4,600 estimate is not a current loss observation. Its 56-minute input concerns forgone remaining driving time, and the source uses inconsistent median/average labels. That is different from a measured daily search duration. ATRI release; report.

Nothing here was field verified. No facility was visited, no driver’s duty log was checked and no vacancy test was conducted. State feature counts and budget values are reported inputs, not this publication’s safety inspections or financial audits.

The four Lehigh Valley ramp listings are plans with unresolved current status. The dated William Penn Highway opening announcement is a separate record with no capacity stated in that release. Neither becomes a complete county inventory. PennDOT list; opening release.

No county-wide total is published here. The record does not establish one for Lehigh County or Northampton County. This limitation is specific to the compiled evidence, not a claim that county-level parking datasets do not exist elsewhere in the United States.

Which truck parking figures remain unestablished or unresolved?

Several gaps remain visible because they affect how a number can be quoted. The list below identifies missing evidence or conflicts; it does not publish unsupported values as statistics. An unresolved item is not replaced by a zero, an invented explanation or an undated approximation.

The exact counts behind FHWA’s 2019 national approximations. The presentation displays approximately 313,000 total, 40,000 public and 273,000 private spaces. This page does not establish the exact unrounded totals behind those figures. FHWA.

The private-directory year behind the 2015 report. FHWA’s program metadata identifies 2013; Chapter II identifies the 2015 Trucker’s Friend database. Both source-year statements remain in the record. FHWA program metadata; Chapter II.

The baseline behind the 6 percent and 11 percent growth statements. Those percentages do not reproduce from the earlier inventory totals and later displayed approximations. The material reviewed does not establish the applicable revised baseline, coverage or correction. FHWA Table 4; 2019 results.

The original employment or driver population behind “one space per 11 drivers.” ATRI’s release repeats the estimate but does not set out its derivation there. This page’s BLS examples illustrate how a rounded ratio can change with the population; they do not identify the original estimate’s inputs. ATRI.

A directly usable, harmonized 2019 state public-plus-private table for this comparison. FHWA’s presentation contains state comparisons and its program page links public geospatial data. That is not the same as saying no state information exists. This edition does not substitute chart readings or unprocessed location data for a verified, comparable 50-state table. FHWA presentation; program page.

Question-specific response counts for several 2019 survey findings. The presentation gives survey-wide totals but does not supply individual-question counts for all the percentages and averages quoted here. Those findings remain attributed to respondents, without invented exact denominators. FHWA.

A current national dollar cost of the parking shortage. No such value is established by the historical model reproduced here. An old per-driver illustration multiplied by a newer, differently defined occupational population would be an additional model, not a measured industry loss.

Current opening status of the four planned Lehigh Valley ramp sites. Inconsistent planning-document editions prevent treating the retrieved rows as current opening confirmations. The October 9, 2025 William Penn Highway release establishes its dated announcement but does not state a capacity. PennDOT list; opening release.

Current complete county inventories for Lehigh and Northampton. The selected ramp subtotals are not county totals, and the statewide delivery announcement cannot be allocated to counties without the relevant site records.

The funding period for H.R. 1659 is not left unresolved: the cited introduced text specifies $151 million in each of fiscal years 2025–2029. The remaining distinction is version and legal stage, which Table 8 states explicitly. Introduced bill.

What are this page’s attribution details?

This page’s original contribution is its compilation and calculations, not ownership of the underlying observations. FHWA, ATRI, AASHTO, BLS and PennDOT remain the named sources for their own records. The reference details below identify this edition and the original calculations it contains.

How to cite this page

Publication: Allentown Dock Door Repair Research
Page title: Truck Parking Statistics: What America Has Counted, and When It Counted It
URL: https://allentowndockdoorrepair.com/research/truck-parking-statistics/
Dataset edition: September 16, 2026, version 2.1
Last verified: September 16, 2026

The joined state table and 46-state ratio check are identified separately from the source observations. A reference to a calculation should keep its denominator and eligible-state count: 46 states for the ratio check, 47 for the reported rest-area total, 45 for the non-comparable public-column calculation and 35 for the budget range.

Stable section and table anchors are included throughout the page. The headline calculation is at the 46-state statistic, the full state data at Table 3, the detailed ratio check at Table 4, and the files at dataset downloads.

What are the answers to common truck parking data questions?

The questions below distinguish a historical national total from a current observation, a source-defined comparison from a shortage estimate, and a plan from an opening. Each answer carries the qualification needed to stand on its own. Full calculations and source details appear in the corresponding sections above.

How many truck parking spaces are there in the United States?

FHWA’s 2018–19 survey results report approximately 313,000 spaces: about 40,000 public and 273,000 private, presented in December 2020. The detailed inventory in its 2015 report totals 308,920. This reference does not establish a current complete national count, and neither historical total is labelled as a 2026 observation. FHWA results; 2015 inventory.

Which state has the most truck parking?

Texas has the largest total in FHWA’s 2015 inventory table: 27,380 reported public and private spaces, including 26,230 private spaces. Among the 47 states in ATRI’s 2024 public-rest-area data, Florida has the largest count at 2,100, followed by Illinois at 1,449, Texas at 1,409 and Ohio at 1,403. These are different facility categories and source periods, not current all-parking rankings. FHWA; ATRI.

Which state has the most truck parking relative to its road network?

Indiana has ATRI’s highest published rest-area ratio at 37.5 truck spaces per 100 National Highway System road miles; Vermont follows at 32.9 and West Virginia at 32.0. The published ratios combine 2024 parking counts with 2022 road mileage. They describe reported supply per road mile, not parking availability or a measured shortage. ATRI.

Does a blank in the 2024 state data mean a state has no truck parking?

No. Alabama, Delaware and Rhode Island did not provide data to the 2024 ATRI/AASHTO survey, so their missing values are not zero. Hawaii’s reported zero applies specifically to truck parking spaces at public rest areas, not every kind of truck parking in the state. ATRI.

Why do the 2019 and 2024 public parking totals differ?

FHWA’s approximately 40,000 public spaces and ATRI’s 30,440 public-rest-area spaces come from different survey periods and reporting coverage. The ATRI figure covers 47 states, and the two sources do not establish a harmonized facility panel. Their gap is not a measured decline, and this reference does not determine how much comes from definitions, reporting differences or actual facility changes. FHWA; ATRI.

Is the “one space per 11 drivers” ratio accurate?

Its meaning depends on the driver population and parking year. Using approximately 313,000 historical spaces, BLS’s May 2025 heavy-and-tractor-trailer employment estimate gives 6.6 positions per space, while a combined heavy-truck, light-truck and driver/sales employment count gives 11.0. These mixed-year illustrations do not establish the original derivation of the published one-per-11 estimate or measure simultaneous overnight demand. BLS; FHWA; ATRI’s estimate.

Are Pennsylvania’s 1,202 planned truck parking spaces open?

PennDOT’s January 28, 2026 release reports 339 spaces at 24 locations opened before the end of 2025, against the 1,202-space plan announced in October 2025. That is a dated progress snapshot, not a complete live status check for September 2026. The four Lehigh Valley ramp listings in this reference are not confirmed current openings. PennDOT delivery release; plan; location list.

When will there be a new federal truck parking count?

This reference does not establish a verified publication date for a new complete federal inventory. FHWA’s program page checked September 16, 2026 links its 2015 and 2019 survey results. A survey schedule, preliminary result or program update should not replace the historical total until the new count and its coverage can be verified. FHWA program page.

Why does it matter how old a truck parking statistic is?

A source’s publication date is not necessarily the year its spaces were counted. ATRI’s dashboard combines 2024 public rest-area counts, 2022 road-mileage denominators and private counts from the 2015 federal report; FHWA’s own documents disagree on whether that older private input is labelled 2013 or 2015. Keeping these distinctions visible prevents a historical or mixed-year figure from being quoted as a current inventory. ATRI; FHWA program metadata; FHWA Chapter II.

Which sources support these figures?

The source list identifies the originating agencies, data producers and legal texts used for this edition. URLs point to those records; the two hosted access copies are explicitly identified as original producer-authored material rather than secondary summaries. All source checks below are dated September 16, 2026, and the observation or publication period is stated separately.

1. Federal Highway Administration. Jason’s Law Truck Parking Survey Results and Comparative Analysis (2015), Section III, Table 4 and survey approach. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/infrastructure/truck_parking/jasons_law/truckparkingsurvey/ch3.htm

2. Federal Highway Administration. Truck Parking program page: survey-result links and geospatial metadata. The page labels the older private source as Trucker’s Friend 2013; see the conflicting report text in source 38. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/infrastructure/truck_parking/index.htm

3. Federal Highway Administration. Jason’s Law Commercial Motor Vehicle Parking Survey and Comparative Assessment, December 1, 2020, HTML presentation. Relevant slides: 7, 8, 12, 14, 17, 22 and 25. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/Freight/infrastructure/truck_parking/coalition/2020/mtg/mtg12012020_jasons_law.htm

4. Federal Highway Administration. December 1, 2020 Jason’s Law results, original 32-page presentation PDF; relevant displayed figures checked against the page images. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/Freight/infrastructure/truck_parking/coalition/2020/mtg/jasons_law_results.pdf

5. American Transportation Research Institute and AASHTO. State-Level Public Truck Parking Findings, published in April 2025. The page specifies 2024 DOT inputs, 2022 NHS/truck-VMT inputs and private counts from the 2015 Jason’s Law report. Publisher text verified through its indexed page. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://truckingresearch.org/2025/04/truck-parking-index/

6. American Transportation Research Institute. ATRI Research Focuses on Truck Parking at Public Rest Areas, April 8, 2025. Primary release for the joint ATRI/AASHTO research and reported rest-area averages. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://truckingresearch.org/2025/04/atri-research-focuses-on-truck-parking-at-public-rest-areas/

7. American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. ATRI, AASHTO Issue National Truck Parking Report, April 2025. Co-producer’s publication notice. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://aashtojournal.transportation.org/atri-aashto-issue-national-truck-parking-report/

8. American Transportation Research Institute. Truck Parking Case Study release, December 13, 2016. The release describes forgone remaining drive time and approximate annual mileage and earnings effects. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://truckingresearch.org/2016/12/atri-truck-parking-case-study/

9. American Transportation Research Institute. Official publication record for Managing Critical Truck Parking Case Study—Real World Insights from Truck Parking Diaries, December 2016. Verified September 16, 2026.
   https://truckingresearch.org/2016/12/5342/

10. American Transportation Research Institute. Original December 2016 diary report, hosted access copy on Scribd. Sample description and Section 4.42 were read here. The original methods call 56 minutes a median; the conclusion uses average. This is an access copy of the producer’s report, not a report authored by Scribd. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.scribd.com/document/607600277/ATRI-Truck-Parking-Case-Study-Insights-12-2016

11. American Transportation Research Institute. Truck Parking research directory. Used to distinguish the cited 2016 study from other parking research rather than asserting that no subsequent work exists. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/about-atri/atri-research/truck-parking/

12. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Table 1: employment and wage estimates for SOC 53-3032, 53-3033 and 53-3031. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ocwage.t01.htm

13. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Outlook Handbook: Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers. 2025 employment figure in the edition checked for this page. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/heavy-and-tractor-trailer-truck-drivers.htm

14. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. OEWS Frequently Asked Questions: employment coverage, self-employment exclusion and employment-projections distinction. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm

15. Federal Highway Administration. Highway Statistics 2022, Table HM-41, National Highway System Length. Total road-mileage column used for four state spot-checks. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2022/hm41.cfm

16. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Summary of Hours of Service Regulations, property-carrying drivers, including exceptions and qualifying rest provisions. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-hours-service-regulations

17. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. FMCSA Advances Hours-of-Service Pilot Programs for America’s Truck Drivers, August 27, 2026. Pre-test completion and planned 2027 full pilots. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/newsroom/fmcsa-advances-hours-service-pilot-programs-americas-truck-drivers

18. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Statewide truck parking expansion announcement, October 6, 2025: 1,202 spaces at 133 locations planned by the end of 2026. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.pa.gov/agencies/penndot/news-and-media/newsroom/statewide/2025/shapiro-admin-expands-statewide-truck-parking-options-for-first-

19. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Statewide truck parking delivery announcement, January 28, 2026: 339 spaces at 24 locations opened before the end of 2025. Includes separately described Turnpike initiatives. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.pa.gov/agencies/penndot/news-and-media/newsroom/statewide/2026/shapiro-administration-delivers-over-300-new-truck-parking-space

20. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. Planned Additional Truck Parking location list, PDF. Relevant four ramp counts verified; inconsistent text/page editions prevent a current-opening inference. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/penndot/documents/travelinpa/safety/trafficsafetyanddrivertopics/documents/penndot-planned-additional-truck-parking.pdf

21. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, District 5. Northampton County truck parking opening announcement, October 9, 2025: William Penn Highway park-and-ride. The release does not state a capacity. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.pa.gov/agencies/penndot/news-and-media/newsroom/district-5/2025/shapiro-administration-opens-more-truck-parking-in-northampton-c0

22. U.S. Congress / Government Publishing Office. Public Law 119-75, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2026, February 3, 2026. Division D, Title I, Highway Infrastructure Program parking appropriation and conditions. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-119publ75/html/PLAW-119publ75.htm

23. U.S. Congress / Government Publishing Office. H.R. 1659, 119th Congress, Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, introduced version. Section 5: $151 million in each of FY2025–FY2029. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr1659ih/html/BILLS-119hr1659ih.htm

24. U.S. Congress / Government Publishing Office. H.R. 8870, BUILD America 250 Act, introduced May 19, 2026. Truck parking authorization in the introduced text: $150 million in each of FY2027–FY2031. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr8870ih/html/BILLS-119hr8870ih.htm

25. Congressional Research Service. Surface Transportation Reauthorization: Federal Highway Programs, R48845. Defines the IIJA federal highway authorization period as FY2022–FY2026. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48845

26. Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. Freight planning page: regional plan adopted December 18, 2024, and related planning materials. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://lvpc.org/freight

27. Eastern Pennsylvania Freight Alliance. Plan and Strategies: regional truck operations and parking planning context. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://epennfa.org/plan-and-strategies

28. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, 2016: truck parking fourth. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2016/10/mandated-use-of-electronic-logging-devices-tops-the-list-of-concerns-in-annual-trucking-industry-survey/

29. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, 2017: truck parking fourth. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2017/10/driver-shortage-back-on-top-as-trucking-industrys-top-concern/

30. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, 2018: truck parking fifth. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2018/10/driver-shortage-once-again-ranked-as-trucking-industrys-top-concern-2/

31. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, 2019: truck parking fifth. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2019/10/driver-shortage-hours-of-service-rules-and-driver-compensation-top-the-list-of-industry-concerns/

32. American Transportation Research Institute. ATRI Report Unveils Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry, ATRI-authored release republished by Food Logistics, November 13, 2020: truck parking third. Authorship is explicitly credited to ATRI. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://www.foodlogistics.com/transportation/trucking/press-release/21202943/american-transportation-research-institute-atri-atri-report-unveils-critical-issues-in-the-trucking-industry

33. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, 2021: truck parking fifth. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2021/10/trucking-workforce-issues-top-the-list-of-industry-concerns/

34. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, 2022: truck parking third. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2022/10/fuel-costs-top-the-list-of-trucking-industry-issues/

35. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, 2023: truck parking second. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2023/10/the-economy-tops-the-list-of-trucking-industry-issues/

36. American Transportation Research Institute. Top Industry Issues research directory: publication records for the annual series. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/about-atri/atri-research/top-industry-issues/

37. American Transportation Research Institute. Annual industry issue findings, October 26, 2025: parking fourth overall, second among driver respondents, with a two-place drop from the 2024 overall position. More than 4,200 respondents in 2025. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://truckingresearch.org/2025/10/for-the-third-year-in-a-row-the-economy-is-the-trucking-industrys-top-concern/

38. Federal Highway Administration. Jason’s Law Truck Parking Survey Results and Comparative Analysis (2015), Chapter II, Parking Space Data. Explicitly names the 2015 Trucker’s Friend database, conflicting with the 2013 label on the program page. Verified September 16, 2026.
    https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/infrastructure/truck_parking/jasons_law/truckparkingsurvey/ch2.htm

Allentown Dock Door Repair Research is the independent research and reference section of allentowndockdoorrepair.com. It is a section of this website, not a separate research institution or government body. The organization named above is the author and publisher of this compilation; no individual reviewer or professional credential is implied.

Last verified: September 16, 2026. The verification date changes only after source re-checking. It does not turn historical counts, introduced legislation or planned locations into current observations.