Every night across America, thousands of truck drivers face the same reality. The logbook is clean. The clock is tight. The freight is delivered. Yet the parking lot is full.
As a result, what should be a simple shutdown turns into a scavenger hunt for a legal place to rest. Drivers comb through packed truck stops, spill onto gravel shoulders, or squeeze into unauthorized industrial lots that were never designed for overnight parking. This cycle does more than frustrate drivers. It quietly increases risk across the entire industry.
Now, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is taking a serious step toward putting real numbers behind this long-standing problem.
FMCSA has announced plans to submit a new Information Collection Request to the White House for approval. Once approved, the agency will launch a nationwide driver survey as part of a new study titled “Quantifying the Benefits of Creating New Truck Parking Spaces.” The goal is straightforward. FMCSA wants to measure the true economic, safety, and operational costs tied directly to America’s truck parking shortage.
This time, the agency is not relying on assumptions or anecdotal complaints. It is going after hard data.
Why Truck Parking Remains a Top Industry Concern
For years, truck parking has refused to slide off the industry’s list of most critical issues. In national rankings, it consistently appears alongside fuel costs, driver pay, and liability exposure. That persistence alone signals how deeply the problem cuts into daily operations.
More importantly, the numbers explain why the issue will not go away. Nationwide, far more trucks operate each night than legal parking spaces exist to serve them. On average, public rest areas provide fewer than twenty truck parking spots. In some regions, that number drops even lower.
Because of this imbalance, pressure builds across every part of the system. Drivers feel it first. Safety departments feel it next. Compliance teams feel it when the notices arrive. Eventually, insurers and regulators feel it as well.
Although parking looks like an infrastructure issue on the surface, it has evolved into a safety and compliance challenge that compounds every single evening.
What FMCSA’s New Study Will Actually Measure
This is not designed as a surface-level opinion survey. Instead, FMCSA structured the study to capture specific driver behaviors caused by parking shortages.
The agency will use a 25-minute online questionnaire and invite thousands of drivers across multiple industry segments to participate. From that group, FMCSA plans to collect approximately 1,000 completed responses.
Drivers will be asked how often they:
⭐ Park in unauthorized or unsafe locations
⭐ Shut down early just to secure a parking space
⭐ Detour off-route to search for parking
⭐ Drive beyond legal hours of service
⭐ Use reservation systems or paid parking services
Each of these behaviors directly affects compliance, safety performance, and enforcement exposure. In other words, FMCSA is not just measuring where trucks park. It is measuring how parking shortages reshape driver decision-making.
The Hidden Economic Damage Behind the Parking Shortage
Independent industry research already shows that the parking shortage creates massive economic consequences. Millions of trucks require overnight parking each day, yet fewer than one million official truck parking spaces exist nationwide. That gap forces drivers into inefficient routing, early shutdowns, and extended search times.
As a result, carriers absorb losses that rarely show up on a profit-and-loss statement in clean line items.
Extra fuel burned during detours.
Lost driver time searching for spaces.
Late deliveries caused by premature shutdowns.
Higher crash exposure tied to fatigue.
Increased theft and cargo loss.
Rising insurance premiums and legal costs.
Collectively, these losses push the economic toll of the truck parking shortage into the tens of billions of dollars every year.
On the human side, drivers lose significant time daily simply trying to find a place to sleep. Over weeks and months, that lost time erodes pay, morale, and safety discipline. FMCSA’s study aims to finally quantify those ripple effects using government-backed analysis.
The Three Core Benefits FMCSA Wants to Quantify
Through this study, FMCSA intends to place measurable value on three primary benefit categories:
⭐ Reduced operating costs for carriers
⭐ Improved driver well-being
⭐ Fewer commercial vehicle crashes
Each benefit connects directly to profitability and public safety. When legal parking increases, fatigue decreases. When fatigue drops, crash rates decline. As crashes fall, lawsuits and insurance costs follow.
At the same time, better parking access supports driver retention and workforce stability. Drivers who feel safer and less stressed stay with their employers longer. Stable fleets perform better. Safety cultures improve.
Consequently, parking is no longer just about convenience. It directly affects business sustainability.
The National Questions FMCSA Is Working to Answer
The study focuses on several key national-level questions:
⭐ How many trucks park in authorized and unauthorized areas each day
⭐ How large the true nationwide parking shortage is
⭐ Which methods of increasing parking capacity provide the best return
⭐ Which parking management systems are used most often and perform best
⭐ What percentage of drivers regularly reserve or pay for parking
Together, these answers will guide how future infrastructure funding gets distributed. Additionally, they will help planners determine where new parking will produce the greatest safety and economic benefit.
Why Earlier Studies Did Not Go Far Enough
FMCSA acknowledged that previous truck parking studies failed to capture the specific behavioral data needed to calculate full economic impact. Many surveys discussed frustration but could not reliably quantify how often drivers:
⭐ Parked illegally
⭐ Shut down early for access
⭐ Added miles to search for space
⭐ Exceeded hours-of-service to avoid unsafe shutdowns
Without that information, policymakers lacked the tools to connect parking capacity directly to crash risk, enforcement trends, and financial impact. This new study is designed to close that long-standing gap.
How FMCSA Plans to Use the Results
Once the survey concludes, FMCSA will combine the findings with additional safety and infrastructure data to build region-specific benefit models. These models will shape decisions made by:
⭐ Federal transportation agencies
⭐ State departments of transportation
⭐ Local planning authorities
⭐ Truck stop developers
⭐ Private infrastructure investors
Ultimately, those decisions will determine where future truck parking develops and where resources flow.
Why Fleets Should Pay Attention Now
Even before new parking spaces appear, the operational impact already shows up in enforcement data. Parking shortages directly contribute to:
⭐ Hours-of-service violations
⭐ Fatigue-related crashes
⭐ Unauthorized parking citations
⭐ Cargo and equipment theft
⭐ Higher insurance premiums
⭐ Lower CSA scores
Because of this, parking is not a secondary issue from a compliance perspective. It sits at the root of many costly violations and audit outcomes.
The Leadership Reality Fleets Must Address
In many cases, compliance failures tied to parking do not stem solely from infrastructure. Planning decisions often play an equal role.
Tight schedules without buffer time.
Routes designed without real-world parking constraints in mind.
Appointments stacked back-to-back.
Minimal flexibility when delays occur late in the day.
When systems leave drivers with impossible choices, violations predictably follow. The upcoming FMCSA data will not only spotlight infrastructure gaps. It will also quietly highlight how operational planning shapes compliance outcomes.
What This Signals for DOT Enforcement
Whenever a federal agency begins gathering detailed behavioral data, enforcement priorities typically follow. In the months and years ahead, fleets should expect:
⭐ Greater audit focus on fatigue management
⭐ More targeted roadside inspections
⭐ Increased scrutiny of safety management systems
⭐ Deeper reviews of scheduling and trip planning practices
Fleets that adapt early will stay ahead of these shifts. Those that wait will likely meet the consequences through enforcement.
How Eclipse DOT Helps Fleets Stay Ahead
At Eclipse DOT, we see how parking shortages translate into real compliance exposure.
We see logbook violations tied to drivers searching for space.
We see inspections triggered by unauthorized parking.
We see safety scores damaged by fatigue-related incidents.
Through audits, training, compliance systems, and DOTDocs, we help fleets:
⭐ Identify hidden hours-of-service risks tied to parking
⭐ Strengthen trip planning and safety programs
⭐ Train drivers to navigate scarce parking legally
⭐ Prepare for audits before enforcement arrives
⭐ Protect safety scores and insurance profiles
While parking may be a national challenge, compliance exposure remains a company-level responsibility.
FMCSA Is Accepting Public Feedback
FMCSA is now seeking public comments on the proposed survey. The agency is requesting input on:
⭐ Whether the study aligns with FMCSA’s mission
⭐ How data quality can be improved
⭐ How question clarity can be strengthened
⭐ How to reduce the burden on drivers
For fleets and drivers alike, this comment period offers a rare opportunity to shape how federal data collection drives future policy.
The Bottom Line
Truck parking now stands recognized as a national economic, safety, and compliance risk. Data from this study will guide future policy. Policy will drive funding. Funding will influence where new infrastructure develops.
Meanwhile, compliance will continue to be measured at the roadside every night.
Until real capacity arrives, fleets must operate within today’s constraints using smarter planning, tighter oversight, stronger training, and proactive compliance strategies.
A Final Word from Eclipse DOT
Truck parking affects far more than where drivers sleep. It shapes how safely they operate, how legally they log, how insurable they remain, and how stable their businesses stay.
If your compliance strategy does not account for daily parking pressure, your exposure may already be higher than you think.
Eclipse DOT offers a free DOT micro audit to help fleets identify vulnerabilities before violations, lawsuits, or insurance issues surface.
Sometimes the most profitable decision is addressing risk before enforcement ever does.
Sources
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FMCSA Federal Register Notice: Quantifying the Benefits of Creating New Truck Parking Spaces
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-11-28/html/2025-21431.htm -
CDL Life Coverage on the FMCSA Driver Survey
https://cdllife.com/2025/fmcsa-to-survey-thousands-of-truckers-on-monetary-benefits-of-creating-new-truck-parking-spaces/ -
American Transportation Research Institute and AASHTO National Truck Parking Report
https://aashtojournal.transportation.org/atri-aashto-issue-national-truck-parking-report/ -
Truck Parking Club Economic Impact Research
https://truckparkingclub.com/research -
FreightWaves Analysis on the Truck Parking Debate
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/exclusive-truck-parking-beyond-the-myth-of-a-shortage