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Nicole Coene
Good afternoon or good morning to those of you in the West. Welcome to the Talking Freight Seminar Series. My name is Nicole Coene and I will moderate today's seminar. Today's topic is: Truck Parking Issues and Initiatives.
Before I go any further, I do want to let those of you who are calling into the teleconference for the audio know that you need to mute your computer speakers or else you will be hearing your audio over the computer as well.
Today we'll have five presentations, given by:
Jeff Purdy currently works in the FHWA Office of Freight Management and Operations in Washington DC. His responsibilities include freight performance measures, demand modeling and data improvement, and truck parking.
Prior to moving to FHWA Headquarters, he served as the Technical Services Team Leader and Transportation Planner for the FHWA Wyoming Division. Before joining FHWA, Jeff worked for a community and transportation planning consulting firm in Michigan. Jeff began his career as a planner for the Department of Defense, working on Air Force base planning and NEPA.
Jeff has a Masters of Urban Planning from Michigan State University.
Dan Murray has more than 23 years of experience in a broad range of transportation fields including freight research, intermodal freight planning, transportation technology applications and public transit.
He is responsible for managing more than $3.5M in transportation research, testing and evaluation. Prior to his employment with ATRI, Mr. Murray spent three years working for a Chicago economic development consortium and four years developing transit programs, policy and funding with the Regional Transit Board in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota.
He is actively involved in a variety of public and private transportation- and research-oriented programs, presently sits on the Minnesota Freight Advisory Committee and formerly represented freight interests as a Board Member of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Kenny Lowry has been in the trucking industry for 43 years, 41 of those years as a driver. Kenny has been working for Walmart for 29 years and has 3.7 million accident free miles in his career.
Mathew Pahs joined the Washington State Department of Transportation in 2014, where he is a freight transportation planner responsible for leading research, studies, and plans, and the development of freight performance measures. Matt recently completed the 2016 Truck Parking Study, and is currently updating the 2017 Freight System Plan for Washington State. Prior to joining WSDOT, Matt was a freight transportation planner with the Minnesota Department of Transportation for 12 years. Matt holds a Master of Urban and Regional Panning degree from Portland State University and a B.S. in Urban and Regional Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.
Cheryl Ball is the Waterways and Freight Administrator at the Missouri Department of Transportation. In her current position, Cheryl works to identify barriers to efficient movements and bring together public and private partners to find solutions to these barriers. During her 28-year career with MoDOT, Cheryl has worked in multiple district offices and divisions within Missouri. She has also worked in many facets of transportation including construction inspection, bridge inspection, roadway design, local program liaison, regional planning, statewide planning, legal, and district administration.
She is a civil engineering graduate from Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri and earned a Juris Doctorate from Saint Louis University School of Law and is a licensed attorney. Cheryl is certified as a Mediator through Washington University School of Law and the Missouri State University Centers for Dispute Resolution. Cheryl serves as Missouri's representative on the AASHTO Standing Committee on Water Transportation, the Mid America Freight Coalition, and the Institute for Trade and Transportation Studies Freight Coalition as well as multiple AASHTO working groups for freight planning and performance metrics. She is a graduate of the I-95 Corridor Coalition Freight Academy immersion program.
Today's seminar will last 90 minutes, with 60 minutes allocated for the speakers, and the final 30 minutes for audience Question and Answer. If during the presentations you think of a question, you can type it into the chat area. Please make sure you send your question to "Everyone" and indicate which presenter your question is for. Presenters will be unable to answer your questions during their presentations, but I will start off the question and answer session with the questions typed into the chat box. If time allows, we will open the phone lines for questions as well. If we run out of time and are unable to address all questions we will attempt to get written responses from the presenters to the unanswered questions.
The PowerPoint presentations used during the seminar are available for download from the file download box in the lower right corner of your screen. The presentations will also be available online within the next few weeks, along with a recording and a transcript. I will notify all attendees once these materials are posted online.
Talking Freight seminars are eligible for 1.5 certification maintenance credits for AICP members. In order to obtain credit for today's seminar, you must have logged in with your first and last name or if you are attending with a group of people you must type your first and last name into the chat box. More detailed instructions on how to obtain your credits are available on the AICP website.
For those of you who are not AICP members but would like to receive PDH credits for this webinar, please note that FHWA does not formally offer PDHs, however, it may be possible to receive PDHs for your participation in Talking Freight if you are able to self-certify. To possibly receive PDHs, please download the agenda from the file download box and submit this agenda to your respective licensing agency.
Finally, I encourage everyone to please also download the evaluation form from the file share box and submit this form to me after you have filled it out.
I'm now going to turn it over to Jeff Purdy of FHWA to get us started.
Jeff Purdy
Thank you. Well as you know, congress passed MAP-21 back in 2012 that put additional emphasis and focus on the issue of truck parking. As part of that, one of the things that USDOT initiated was the Jason's Law Survey and Comparative Assessment. This did a nationwide assessment of truck parking situations from state to state and generally this report found that truck parking was a problem in all states, with problems most evident along major freight corridors and around major metropolitan areas where you got a lot either ports or industrial activity.
As an outgrowth of the Jason's Law effort we developed a national coalition for truck parking. It brings together stakeholders from transportation agencies as well as the freight industry and advocates for safe truck parking. It includes not only different modes here at USDOT but also the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, the American Trucking Association, the Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, and AASHTO.
This group was generally formed to provide collaboration at the national level, to identify opportunities and solutions to meet truck parking needs, to share information and data on truck parking availability and locations where needs are greatest for truck parking, and encourage partnerships among stakeholders to implement solutions to truck parking problems and identify opportunities to leverage existing or new programs to improve the supply of truck parking
Also as part of this effort under the direction of the national coalition, we conducted a series of four regional forums to discuss the issue of truck parking. The attendees at these forums represented public transportation officials as well as private freight stakeholders including truck drivers and representatives from freight companies and there was extensive discussion of potential implementation initiatives that could be undertaken by the partnership, whether it is public sector or private sector, working in partnership to develop solutions to truck parking problems.
The outcomes of this effort focused on cooperative partnership in four general areas: looking at how to improve parking capacity; options in terms of funding finance and regulations; looking at how to leverage technology and data; and working with state regional and local governments in order to plan for truck parking.
Some of the things that were thrown out by the group for consideration and that we're going to be working on developing implementation recommendations for a number of these initiatives. Looking at things such as under parking capacity, investigating creative uses of highway right-of-way to expand and provide additional truck parking, improving rest areas to accommodate modern trucks, extending time limits at rest areas to be able to accommodate hour-service breaks, options for using large venues during off hours for overflow truck parking, re-development of brownfields sites to develop truck parking in industrial areas, and looking at other types of industry practices and parking arrangements to be able to work with private industry to provide truck parking, and looking at things such as coordination between shippers and receivers in the trucking industry to provide options for truck parking on site at delivery locations.
In terms of technology, there's a lot underway right now to provide ITS technology to disseminate real-time parking information to maximize the use of existing parking, but we're also looking at balancing the technology with the needs to develop parking.
In terms of funding and finance, we're looking at things like public private partnerships to new parking capacity. Looking at ways of incorporating truck parking into industrial developments and districts, tax incentives to encourage private development of new truck parking.
Finally, another major area of focus is going to be state, regional, and local government coordination. Making sure that truck parking is being addressed in state and NPO freight plans. Encouraging trucking industry involvement in state and NPO advisory committees. Recommending at the local level that initiative be undertaken to incorporate truck parking as part of zoning for local industrial districts. Finally, general education and outreach to local and regional elected officials on the importance of truck parking.
Now we're going to hear a few presentations today from people involved in truck parking. I think we're going to have some really good insights into some of the efforts underway right now. With that I'll turn it over to Chip to introduce our next speaker.
Chip Millard
Our next speaker is Dan Murray with the American Transportation Research Institute or ATRI. He's going to talk about a recently completed study that ATRI completed regarding truck parking.
Dan Murray
Thanks a lot Chip. I'm going to confess I'm going to cheat. While I was officially asked to talk about the truck parking diary report we just released, I do have some background slides that set a primer discussion of what the issue is for the industry, then I'll wrap up with some slides on the truck parking diary report findings.
First of all, I think many of you online know who we are and what we do. We do research in a series of areas. That website is very important because all our research when completed is published online free of charge for folks. So, any particular freight research activities and issues you're interested in – we quite likely have research available for you.
We have a board of directors that include presidents and CEOs of these companies, many familiar faces. But we also have a research advisory committee that is really a broad, disparate group representing academia, industry, government, industry, suppliers. These folks get together every year to discuss critical issues in the trucking industry, what research problem statements would address those issues, and then prioritize those issues. Not surprisingly, the truck parking rose to the number one issue for the Research Advisory Committee in 2015.
We've been busy over the last 18 months, working on a variety of truck parking initiatives. As you can imagine, separate from the prioritization by the RAC, we go out every year and survey many thousands of truck drivers and motor carrier executives to say "what are your top issues". We've been doing this for almost a decade now. You see issues rise and fall. One of the few issues that has been a perennial climber is truck parking. This is the list for 2016 among all participants in the survey. You can see truck parking went up to 4 from 5 last year. When you break it out however, by truck drivers and motor carriers, truck parking is number 3 for truck drivers and I'll tell you that the year prior it was number 2. It's not because it dropped in criticality by any means, it's just that the short-term implications of the EOD and hours of service issue came into play. This is a big issue for the industry. It affects everything form fatigue management to the regulatory climate and in many ways, it affects supply chain efficiently and productivity. I'm going to talk a little bit about that now.
So, we collected hundreds of financials from truck companies of all sizes and sector and regions. This is a synthesis of those line item costs. If you get the report you can see it in per mile and per hour. I'm pointing out these costs because you will see that costs have been rising steadily over the last many years and you'll see while in 2015 it looks like there's a drop, that's completely masked by the fuel costs which are dramatically down this year and have been for frankly about 2 years. If you were just to take the 2014 fuel costs of essentially 5.8 cents on the mile or so, or in this case I should say 58 cents on the mile and put that into the 2015 figure, you'd see 2015 costs even higher than 2014.
So, costs in the industry are going up substantially and it becomes extremely important, particularly with the two most expensive costs - fuel and wages - to manage our time well. That includes maintaining trucks and drivers on key corridors moving when they can, parking as close to proximity of a pick-up and delivery as they can. We're going to discover that very quickly becoming more challenging for the industry. We'll notice that by any definition economists will tell us this is a good economy we're in now, comparable to 04, 05, 06. But profit margins in the industry, at least among large carriers, went down to where we're now sitting around 3.2 or 3.4 cents on the dollar of profit in the industry. So, you can imagine how not just minutes and hours can make a difference in profitability of a single load, but multiplied by thousands of loads and trucks, parking becomes a very costly endeavor for drivers and carriers.
So here is the bottom line, if you look at this you'll discover that everything from fuel volatility to economic downturns can dramatically swing business failures. And these aren't owner operators, these are trucking firms with at least 5 trucks or more. Into and out of the red and black. I'm only showing this background on the economics of the industry to convey to you that truck parking often times will make or break the productivity of the load. Forget the fact that the supply chain and JIT manufacturing and delivery and our whole Amazon mentality of "I don't want it two days from now, I need it this second" is going to be impacted by where and when they can park.
So again, I mentioned to you that the top ranked issue in 2015 was truck parking. We have a series of different activities underway or completed. I'll just spend a couple minutes talking about those and then get into the diaries.
We've conducted annual surveys at a mid-America truck show every year. Over a 1000 to 1500 driver responses. Every year we modify the survey just slightly to update it and make it more reflective of those issues. it is very telling in terms of what the truck driver issues and perspectives are in terms of truck parking where the biggest shortages are. What they think about parking reservation systems, what they'd be willing to pay, etc. Feel free to grab that survey online.
One of the really interesting things – I know we have a couple people form MNDOT on line today – we used our truck GPS data to help the MNDOT determine where and when truck parking needs were increasing enough at five public rest stops in MN to potentially justify expanding the number of available spaces. We took all of our GPS data, which represented a large percentage of trucks in those particular parking areas and corridors, but not 100%. So, we built in expansion factors using WIM data and HPMS data for nearby locations to the parking so we could assess our GPS data at 100% and then looked at utilization of the spaces. The GPS data is extremely robust. For two week periods, every hour of the day, day of the week, that sort of thing. We could tell them what percentage of the time (again by hour of day, day of week) that the facility was at over capacity. At least 2 if not 3 of the five now are being programmed for expansion over the next couple years. So, we're really excited about using the technology generated from industry to help agencies with this sort of analysis. And this is just sort of a visualization of what some of that data would look like.
So, the truck parking diary report – really interesting sort of case study. A deep dive into what a truck driver experiences on a daily basis. This is really important because, like I said, we have data from probably 10 to 12 thousand truck drivers over the last several years. No one of them tells the complete story of what this experience is like qualitatively or even personally.
We have now well over 100 completed diaries representing about 2000 days' worth of activities and almost 5000 unique stops. Every one of those surveys basically said, when you stop, why, where, when, how... Experiences when you park in an unauthorized or illegal location – why when how, where.
I'm just going to share with you sort of a snippet of the findings. I urge to you go online and grab a copy.
This is sort of a look at some demographics of the diary responders. The vast majority were employed drivers. Still about ¼ were either independent contractors and / or owner operators. And you can see the sectors below. Pretty representative of truck drivers who would be experiencing truck parking on a weekly basis or more.
So, we've certainly hit the target market we're looking for. When you drill in a little bit to say where do they fall regionally and in terms of trip length, that information is available here. Probably not a shock to see the regions as well. Mid-west has a huge number of both motor carrier filings as well as economic activity. We did our best to make sure we had at least a taste of the Canadian experience and you'll find that in there as well.
Tools used to find truck parking. I'm going to show you a second slide a little later relating to this. This is important because number one, if I'm going to be in my truck, moving, websites and applications which primarily comes down to apps (as well call them) are critical. And yet, we have a very challenging dilemma which means in January 2013, FMCSA saying they can't press more than 1 button on a smart phone.
We know the Google Play store has about 41,000 freight and logistics related apps. They're certainly not going away or leaving the truck cab. And yet we have to balance driver distraction, regulatory obligations, and the need to find truck parking, and a series of other services available through apps. There is also GPS (TomTom and Garmin) and still a third of us are still using paper books.
Frequency of unauthorized and undesignated parking. I'm jumping all over the report to give you teasers. This one, certainly from the public sector and even an enforcement standpoint, is going to be of high interest. Four times per week, I'm parking in an unauthorized or undesignated parking location. 36% of them, more than a third, will do this at least four times per week. Now this is what happened to Jason himself, when he parked at what was essentially a dark, closed gas station lot and was murdered. This doesn't have just ramifications in terms of is it illegal to park there, but is it possibly dangerous to park there. This is sort of an input into that million-dollar question: Do we have enough capacity/Adequacy of parking in general. It's not just about informing people of where it is with high tech systems, but in general, do we simply need more capacity and volume and the answer appears to be "Yes."
Now this is another one. What does this mean? Average remaining drive time. We know or suspect that truck drivers are forced now, because of the dearth of truck parking, to cut short their revenue time. They can drive up to 11 hours and every one of those minutes and miles is money in their pocket. the question now is, how much sooner do I have to stop my truck to start looking for parking when I could have been running revenue time, but I no longer am because I can't afford to miss a parking space. And here again, you'll see a series of different time bins, but at the end of the day it came down to, on average across the drivers, 51 minutes of revenue time were lost to stop and look for parking. Time I'm not paid for. When you multiply that up by driver wages across the course of a year, it's $4600 of drive time lost to look for parking that I'm not compensated for. With an average driver wage of $45-50k, that means about 10% of my income is spent looking for truck parking.
The real reason for location selection, when we ask them why and where do you stop when you have to take your 10 hour mandated FMCSA hours of service break, the number 1 answer by far was proximity to my pick-up and delivery location, my key freight corridor, etcetera. So, I'm going to stop for my 10 hours, but I'm going to do everything I can to basically be staged for getting in and getting out quickly. Urban area, distribution center, intermodal facility, it doesn't matter. I need to be as close as I can for efficiency purposes. And when I do stop, you'll see that the vast majority of them prefer, for the 10-hour break, to stop at a private truck stop.
How many of you can imagine the availability at a private truck stops that are close to urban areas? The private truck stops will tell you they're being pushed further and further out because of urbanization, zoning, some are even condemned because the land becomes too valuable.
So, I want to stop at a private truck stop near an urban freight facility. The likelihood of finding a spot at that location becomes very low.
I just wanted to wrap up with some quotes. I'll let you read the quotes verbatim. These are quotes that came from the drivers, from their diaries. I think these are telling. ATRI usually deals with numbers and statistics and analysis. But at the end of the day, maybe a quote ends up being worth a thousand words. Thi8s particular woman says she doesn't like they prefer public rest stops for the 10-hour break because they don't want to be hassled. There are safety issues that arise. When you mine the data for very specific targets such as the gender of the respondents, you come up with different needs. We need to be responsive, both industry and public sector, to these different needs.
Two more here: I've been kicked out of truck stops because of overcrowding. I've been kicked out of public rest areas. What's very interesting, we even have some drivers that have been kicked out of closed weigh stations and bypass facilities. That seemed like a safe haven, but several have been kicked out and one or two have been ticketed for parking in what seems like a very appropriate location. The next comment here basically is, "well we all know is the reality that state budgets have a big impact on the facilities and the public sector". Sure, enough, he's got issues with that. At the very least, I think, one of the conclusions we can draw from the second one is that at least public rest areas should never have a prohibition or time limit under 10 hours. 10 hours is a federal requirement. State policy on the truck spaces at least should never be in conflict with federal policy or regulation. I think that is an important message there.
I will also tell you, related to that, we had a considerable number of non-CMV's parking in truck parking. Now, sometimes it's cars, but it's often a pick-up with a boat or an RV. And what exactly you do about that it's hard to say from a public-sector planning standpoint. It may be that the non-CMV's do have time limit restrictions. Maybe pick-ups and boats could have a third set of spaces. It's hard to say, I'm not exactly in the facility management world. But it certainly was an issue with our truck drivers.
Lastly, I think this one is probably worth reading because it reflects just the overall flavor of the truck parking experience by drivers. "Parking is a huge problem; I start early and end my day early to get my chances for finding space. The routes I travel are mostly out west and parking is not hard to find with the exception of urban areas. East of the Mississippi River, you need to be parked WAY before you are out of drive time or you will not find a legal place to park.". I include that because I think that is reflective of the overall experience among the truck drivers. Kenny will probably share some of his experiences and frustrations with you. But it's a very ubiquitous effort on all our parts to find a solution and I'm really excited that we've been kicking off numerous activities including this Talking Freight webinar.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Dan. We will now move on to Kenny Lowry of Walmart.
Kenny Lowry
Thank you, Nicole. My name is Kenny Lowry. I'm a Walmart driver. I drive out of Lawrence, SC, I live in Greenville, SC. I have 43 years in the industry and about 3.7 million accident free miles. My daily route is, I run from SC down to FL, so 90% probably of my corridor that I run on a regular basis is I-26 and I-95. My truck parking in my daily work, what I have access to is 24 truck stops on my normal route. If that for some reason I can't go on my normal run, then that will change. But what I run on a regular basis is, I have 8 rest areas if I'm going south, then 7 if I'm coming back north. 3 of those have zero facilities. Strictly truck parking. I'm actually doing this from a truck right now, I'm stopped at a truck stop here in South Carolina. This stop has 20 spots. I looked on their website before I started this today. Their app claims they have 40 parking spots. But there are only 20 here. Parking wasn't a real issue at this time of day.
So, a lot of stops may have 150 parking spots. There's one in Savannah that advertises they have over 200 parking spots. But I guess what I'm trying to get to – at the end of the day, when it starts getting dark, it's a challenge to find parking. They all fill up. It doesn't matter if it's 8-10 parking spots, truck stop, fuel stop, or if it's a mega truck stop with over 200 spots. They're full. You have to really work and plan to find a spot to park. The rest areas – Dan talked a little about the boats and trucks and campers – it may be regional for me, because I am on I-95 and that's headed right into FL and that's a very popular vacation destination. I get a lot of motorhomes. They're taking up a lot of parking in the truck parking part of the rest areas. South Carolina actually has motor home parking separate from truck parking.
I don't know if better signage could help that. I'm not sure what the answer is on how to slow that down, but they take up a lot of spots. When I say motor homes, they could be a conversion van that they're sleeping in. They could pull in to a regular parking space, but they'll take up an 80' truck parking space. You'll come in with your clock ticking and it gets frustrating. It's very stressful and challenging to try and find somewhere to stop.
Who needs to approach them? I'm not sure, but I don't think it's the truck driver. Somebody needs to approach them as they're parking. Most of the rest areas have attendants there. Just suggest to them that there's parking around over here. If you could just leave this open for my trucks, it would be very beneficial to them. I don't know what the answer is there. But there has to be a better way of doing that.
The lack of rest areas – Dan touched on it too – with the female drivers. I'm not sure how they do it. I have a better idea now, listening to his presentation. I've often wondered about that because it's important to have facilities. That's the #1 thing for me. I need facilities. I prepare all my food on the weekends before I leave. I fix all my meals here in the truck. I run about 3,000 miles per week. I have microwaves, refrigerators, all that. I eat in the truck; I do everything in this truck. This is my home. But, I need those facilities. That's the driving factor for me as to where I park.
Fortunately for me, I have an advantage. The Walmart advantage. I can stop at Walmart stores. You're starting to see a lot more trucks park in Walmart stores as well. Dan actually talked about the apps – there's a lot of great truck stop apps out there. When you pull up the closest truck stop on most of these apps, it will show you every Walmart, Sam's Club, truck stop within the parameters you set in the app.
A lot of the drivers don't have that opportunity to use a store (since we're hauling our own freight), a lot of times if we deliver to a store we go ahead and break right there. I have facilities there and that's what's most important to me.
The danger in doing that for a lot of your drivers is, like in Atlanta, they have a lot of restrictions down there. There have noise ordinances around their stores there. Even the Walmart trucks can't go in there after 2230 or before 0630 because there are neighborhoods all around the stores. The stores try to fit into the communities so they cut down on the truck traffic. We have separate delivery times for those kinds of stores. So, those stores are out of the question. We have to find somewhere else to park.
A lot of places don't want trucks in their lot and will boot them. They put this big boot on the tire. I know for a fact it's $501 to get that boot taken off. So not only is the driver stressed out about trying to find somewhere to park, his day really gets ruined when he has to pay $501 to get moving the next day.
Then you've got a lot of drivers that are very inconsiderate and throw trash out. That will deter store managers from letting anyone other than Walmart truck drivers in. I've actually seen them run drivers out of those parking lots. That's one of the advantages I have, that allows me to find parking a little easier than others. But I'll tell you this, everyone thinks there's Walmart's everywhere. When that clocks ticking, you'd be shocked how hard it is to find a Walmart and find somewhere to park. For years (and I've been driving since 1976), we drove 10 hours (our legal amount to drive). When they changed it to 11 hours, I implemented a program that I use for myself – the 10 and 1. I drive 10 full hours and use that last hour to find parking. To plan my day out and figure out where I'm going to park. It also gives me a cushion. If I get one place and it's full, I've still got time to go to the next.
That's going to be crucial when the electronic log really come into effect for everyone. It's real time. We're on electronic logs at Walmart. When that clock hits 11 hours and 1 minute, I'm in violation. So, I have to be stopped before that 11th hour. It kind of ramps up the stress level a little bit. Once everyone is on this, I think you're going to see, like Dan showed, the unauthorized parking, you're going to see that all over the place. Guys are going to be in violation. To stay legal, they're just going to pull over and park. I don't know how this is going to work out. But I always try to have a Plan B. A lot of the truck stops, you can ride around and see if a guy is settling in for the night or just getting a bite to eat. You can holler at him on the CB radio and ask if he's going to be leaving in a little bit and pull up when he's ready to leave. But again, I don't know if this is a regional thing. According to what Dan was showing, it looks like a more regional thing on the eastern part of the country. When it next loads. They would rather be driving. But for the guys that are out there driving and have to stop, it gets to be a challenge.
There are a couple of truck stops, Truck Stops of America, will let you call and reserve a spot. I don't know if that's the answer. I see a lot of guys get pretty upset about pulling in a truck stops and there are empty spaces they can't use because someone has called and reserved them. I think it's a good idea. The guy is planning his day out.
Should we have more of that? I don't know what the answer is. There has to be a solution of some sort. We have several places here in SC that have been shut down. They've just blocked them off and won't let any trucks in there. I think they could be opened up for truck parking only. Again, they don't have any facilities, but it is a place to get off of the road. You see trucks on the exit ramps, I've never been a fan of that. What I consider safe haven, it has to be off of the road.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Kenny. We will now move on to Matthew Pahs of Washington State DOT
Matt Pahs
Thanks, Nicole. Today I wanted to talk to you about the 2016 truck parking study for Washington State. I'm going to talk about the main corridors being used for trucks and for truck parking in our state. The demand and supply for truck parking. The issues that we've identified in our study, as well as the opportunities and next steps for truck parking. I want to focus some time also on the survey instrument that we developed and administered as well as the truck parking map that we're developing.
As far as what influenced this study, it was basically the result of the Jason's Law survey and analysis, where it showed that WA was 44/50 states for truck spaces per VMT and 42nd when you compare public to private parking space ratio. So basically, we're saying here that there's an opportunity for us to make some advancements because we're not doing so well. We can do better.
As we started to develop this study, ATRI came out with their survey results and they gave out these 3 strategies: investment, education, and real-time parking availability systems. We wanted to make sure our study was consistent with that, and it is.
So, the purpose for our study is to basically review current supply and demand. We had a 2005 truck parking study and a 2008 truck parking survey. Not much has been done at a comprehensive level since then. We rolled that information into the 2014 Freight Plan, but we haven't really addressed the parking issue with all of our partners, really looking at all the issues since 2008. We wanted to take a look at all of the supply and demand happening since then.
We know that in 2016 we have a closure of one of our safety rest areas. We also had a closure of one of our really important weigh stations. That was primarily due to a maintenance issue getting the port-a-potty and the garbage serviced there. Another weigh station is pending closure and we're aware of two truck stops that did close. One new truck stop and one pending new truck stop as supply shifts based on demand and other issues. Also, we have one highly visible city that did put limitations on truck parking in their city. Truck parking can no longer stand in their city as well as no new facilities can be built there. That was an issue that caused the development of the study.
What we wanted to do here is basically look at all the supply and demand and update our issues and then identify opportunities for improving truck parking in our state. What we looked at here was a little different from our early efforts. What we looked at was all types of trucking, not just the long-haul stuff. Regional, local delivery, drayage and all the types of parking associated with that.
As far as the corridors, our 2014 plan identified our major truck corridors. These are state highways as well as local roads. We're calling those the truck freight economic corridors. They're based on volume which, in our state, we translate that into tonnage. It makes them eligible for state funding. They're based on the volume but also the resiliency of the supply chain and they are very important for all types of trucking in our state.
As far as identifying demand factors, we really looked at economic growth and census information in Freight Analysis Framework four (FAF4) by freight activity. As far as truck volumes, we looked at our own traffic count and forecasts, and all these other factors that relate to volume. In addition, we did a detailed analysis of the hours of service regulations at the federal and state level.
As far as supplying capacity, we looked at the traditional supply that people usually look at: truck stops, rest areas, and weigh stations. But we looked at other things too. Like what Kenny said about Walmart lots. We have private lots here and there. We have ports that generate activity and have space. We really wanted to look at our own WSDOT state-owned land, so we looked at our mountain passes. We have areas that are used for when trucks and other vehicles are required to put chains on their tires. That space, when it's not a weather issue, are open for parking. We know trucks are parking on ramps and on shoulders. We have space under our elevated structures, including bridges and other land that we could potentially be using more for truck parking.
What we did was, we decided to develop a truck parking map. This basically focuses on the three types of supply most common: truck stops, safety rest areas, and weigh stations. We're going to do this on a printed map that's intended to be carried on a printed map that's carried in the cab of the truck. So, Kenny and other drivers can use this if they don't have an app or don't have service, or if they're not a real-time availability system. You'll always have this map. It will need to be updated, obviously. It's low cost and low tech.
We really worked closely with our state patrols to make sure we could show these facilities. They do the enforcement of course. weigh stations are not typically legal parking but we were assured that we could show these facilities.
What we're showing here is those three types of parking as well as the number of spaces at each location. The map you see here is just a mock up. We're trying to better understand what our needs are and which version we'd like to see. On the left side, you see the circles with the numbers, those numbers are the number of spaces that are available, not actual capacity. In other words, those are the spaces that are intended for parking (either painted or striped to show parking), but we know there is more capacity beyond those numbers. So, for example, if there's 15 spaces available, we know there are probably more than 15 that could be parked at night. We didn't want to promote unofficial parking, so in some cases it actually shows 0. But we know there is the opportunity for truck drivers to park there. As far as amenities we show what we think the drivers want to have there. So, we're looking at fuel, restrooms primarily. But also, food service, vending machines, that kind of thing.
We should mention that WSDOT attended the national coalition of truck parking meeting in Utah last summer. That's where we got the idea to show some of these features. We really want to develop a map of this study, but having a printed map in the cab, that really came from the Utah meeting.
I also wanted to mention here, that the purpose is related to how to utilize existing supply, not necessarily expansion. Like the real-time systems – using what we have more efficiently.
As far as outreach, this is the other thing I wanted to focus some time on. Three types of outreach. Roundtable discussions where we met with trucking associations, they really helped us identify companies and drivers that were willing to work with us at these meetings. That would sit down and talk to us. We also met with ports, local governments, regional governments. Sit around the table for an hour or hour and a half and really talked about where the issues were that people were experiencing. We had 5 meetings on our major corridors: I-5, I-90, etc.
The second type of interview was a phone interview. A co-worker has a brother who is a truck driver. We met with him over the phone and had a conversation. Also, had the opportunity to do a ride-along. Some WSDOT staff here was able to do an in-person ride along for informational-type discussions. It lasted about a half-day, driving up and down the I-5 corridor, looking at the issues that the driver has to deal with every day, including truck parking.
This survey that I wanted to focus some time on, this is what really influenced a lot of what went on in our study in terms of corridors and other issues. A lot of quantitative data we found. Our own state's trucking association was really critical in getting all of this outreach done, especially this survey. We sent it to our state trucking association, they sent it to 9 other associations as well as British Columbia's. So, we're not just looking at drivers in our state, but drivers who travel through. We're hearing from them too.
So as far as the results of the survey, we found that our major routes are I-5 (a north-south route along the pacific coast), I-90 (the major east west route on the northern tier of the state), and I-405 which is a bypass road in the Seattle area. Those were identified as the major routes for truck parking in our state and where to focus our efforts on. We also identified two other routes as well.
We found that, as far as time spent looking for overnight parking, it's pretty similar to what Dan mentioned. In our state, 67% of drivers are spending 30-60 minutes looking for parking. So, that is kind of like what Kenny said with 10+1. Below, you see these two charts. On the left, it's short term parking preference vs. use and the right is overnight parking. What this shows is there is a mismatch between where drivers want to be and where they're actually parking.
For short-term we're seeing weigh stations are more preferred than are actually used. That could be due to actual spaces being made available or legal issues. then for ramps, they really don't want to be on ramps, but they are. As far as overnight the same thing is true for ramps. Third most used, but least preferred. Sleeper locations are preferred for overnight but not used b/c of availability.
What we're showing is we have drivers in our state parking in unofficial locations and not where they want to be or necessarily need to be. As far as safety, we did identify drivers are regularly (46%) regularly driving fatigued. 59% are frequently concerned for their own safety. Those are the outcomes. What we wanted to show here is we want to test the willingness of an annual fee for truck parking like when you renew your tab. So, if the state was to institute some kin8d of annual fee system, how likely they would be willing to accept that. 33% had some willingness to pay that annual fee. Of those 33%, they said the companies should pay for that, not the drivers. The majority are not willing to pay an annual fee. So maybe some other kind of fee structure.
Through this effort we did identify some major issues. A lot of them in the study, we can't go into them all now. The top issues are what we heard earlier and have heard many times. Safety. Drivers are concerned. The whole reasons for Jason's law was concern for the safety of the driver, but also highway operations and safety. When drivers are parked unofficially it does impact the safety of the travelling public. Another issue in safety is the growing homeless population we have under our bridges and at our safety locations. It does impact our ability to provide adequate truck parking.
Another major issue was urban areas. Dan mentioned that, too. It's probably common in every part of the country. No different here. Our urban areas are where we have most of our truck parking issues. In our state, we also have mountain pass issues. Right now, I-90 passes over the Cascade Mountains and is closed right now. it's been closed a lot this past winter. When that pass closes, we have truck parking problems on both sides of the pass. This morning, it was closed eastbound, so that means at Exit 34 (which is a major truck parking problem), those trucks are backing up. I saw photos on our webcams today, they're all over on the shoulders. That's an issue.
The third major issue identified is the mismatch between where truck drivers want to park and where they are. We went into that issue.
The other issue is environmental issues related to air and noise, infrastructure constraints, communication and coordination.
As far as opportunities, we really wanted to see what we could do to make truck parking better in our state. Just for an example, for infrastructure, we were looking at real-time parking availability systems. We were having conversations with at least one vendor to see the feasibility about doing it at one of our corridors, probably I-5. Also, looking at idle reduction apps we could be using and our own social media outlets that we have at WSDOT.
We also have institutional opportunities we could work on as well as financial opportunities. These are all identified and elaborated on in our study. What we did was identify next steps. This was just a study, so we didn't develop strategies. The next steps are to look at supply constraints, continue communications and coordination. And then do some additional research that we identified through our efforts. We didn't have the right data to fully assess the true demand and supply mismatch in our state, so we need to do some additional research, either with ATRI or some research institutions here that can help us out to better understand that.
The important thing here its hat, right now we're updating our state freight plan. These next steps will be rolled into that plan and we're going to develop strategies to be specific about how we address truck parking in our state.
That was one purpose of our study. The other was to reengage with our partners on truck parking. It was really helpful I think to talk about this again with our partners. The industry, the associations, all our other partners listed here. The associations for truck stops and drivers. It was all really important to reconnect and develop these oporutniti8es and next steps.
So, that's what I have for my presentation today. I encourage everyone to go to our website. The survey instrument is there now, the overall study will not be available today, but it will be available soon. If you have any questions, just send me an e-mail and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Matt. We will now move on to Cheryl Ball of Missouri DOT
Cheryl Ball
Good afternoon. Truck parking shortages and declining state budgets are two hot topics in today's transportation circles. USDOT has identified truck parking shortages as a critical impediment to highway safety, affecting not only freight movement, but everyone travelling on our highways.
As you heard Dan say earlier today, as state budgets are decreasing, many states started closing rest areas and some rest stations. MODOT put on its practical design glasses and found a cost-effective way to lower costs and provide more truck parking spaces.
Every state is facing two seemingly unrelated issues, but we found a way to pull them together. First, too few truck parking locations while our CMV traffic continues to increase and hours of service rules are pushing rest breaks. Trucks park where they can, often on our ramps and shoulders. Rest areas and weigh stations built in the early years of the interstate system, 50 years or more ago, the buildings, technology and (more troublingly) septic systems are antiquated, needing costly maintenance, or wholesale replacement to comply with current environmental and permitting rules. All of this at a time when roads and bridges are past their design life. There is just not enough money in a state DOT's budget.
MODOT staff developed a way to help with both issues. Conversion of those existing assets. Working with our trucking industry, MODOT has converted 23 obsolete and expensive rest areas and weigh stations to parking space for trucks. These conversions are not meant to replace the services of the private struck stops. Instead they provide a supplement in locations we already own. By closing the facilities, we are able to focus scant resources on welcome centers and locations more remote for those travelers.
The conversion costs average somewhere between $900,000 and $1 million per site. This provides paved parking, vault toilets like we use at the MO state parks, and lighting. That's safety lighting. These are noted as truck parking limited services or truck parking no services on our interstate signs.
After the conversion, the monthly costs for 16 of our truck parking total is only $34,000 per month. For 14 rest areas that are still in place that monthly cost is over $256,000 / month. That is a substantial savings that we are allowed with just that upfront costs. The conversions are paying for themselves in about 5 months of operations. So, we needed no extra money but got a whole lot more spaces.
As with anything, we're learning along the way. Trash cans created blowing trash everywhere. Looked awful. We had overflowing debris, so we took those out. It wasn't the right service for what we were trying to provide. Trucks don't like to park at or near active weigh stations. It's just something we find that even when they're marked for parking, they don't like to park there.
Actual data on maintenance of shoulders and ramps is scant. Trucks were parking everywhere and they love having more safe parking spaces and they're parking on the shoulders less. Make sure you talk to your industry on what sites you want to do and let them give you ideas on what they can provide and what's needed. They can help you identify whether that's AZ good place for the investment or not.
This is a map of all of the truck parking locations in the state of MO. MO began our conversion experiment in 2002 when we did our very first conversion. We had about 587 spaces statewide for truck parking. We now have 1,142 spaces with a manageable cash outlay. That's a 94.5% increase. They think on the study we referenced earlier, that MO is ranked 2nd for number of truck parking spaces.
But, this is not the total solution. This is a supplement. More private spaces are needed. Technology solutions are needed. And shippers and receivers must also come to the table to help us. They control the delivery and pickup windows. The timing of the spaces spread out would make better usage of the limited spaces as we've seen from some of the graphs form the earlier presenters.
On our horizon in MO, similar to what you heard Dan say, MODOT is looking for practical solutions within our urban areas and near freight generators to solve the problem but not break our bank. We're using our relationships with Ernie Perry and Mid-America freight coalition and Bruce Lambert at ITTS. They're working on papers and projects that are helping us in these discussions and to look for ways we can move forward.
That's what I have today for a practical solution to help us in this issue. Thanks, Nicole.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Cheryl. I'd now like to start off the Q&A session with the questions posted online. Once we get through those questions, if time allows I'll open up the phone lines for questions.
Michael Onder
Are any initiatives taking place with The National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO)?
Dan Murray
You know, to its credit, NATSO is extremely active in this world. Frankly, it's the epicenter of the world to deal with truck parking. Obviously, it's focused on the private sector side. Tiffany from NATSO is on this webinar as we speak. They're very active. Frankly, ATRI is very proud to have been a technical supporter of the Park My Truck app that is now being managed by NATSO (ATAL also was involved). I have some slides at the end of my presentation, I just didn't want to burn other people's time. If you download my presentation, you'll see some of the snapshots of the park my truck app. NATSO is very active. ATRI is on the national ruck parking coalition, as is NATSO. If you don't mind Nicole, I'll just jump ahead to the question about females.
Female drivers are about 5 to 8% of the truck driver population depending on sector, but the National Truck Parking coalition, but the national coalition also has a female member. So, their unique perspectives are also being inserted into the national dialogue, so that's great news.
Richard Reidy
Are toll agencies eligible for partial funding of efforts to mitigate the truck parking issues?
Dan Murray
That answer is way beyond my skill set. I know there are certainly folks both on the webinar and probably Jeff Purdy might be able to answer that, but I can't speak to it. I'm sorry.
Operator
Ladies and gentleman, this is the operator. I promise we'll get right back to the conference as soon as possible, but we're having some technical difficulties.
Bill Eisele
Could you comment on the fact that motor carrier execs do not have truck parking in their top 10 issues? (your slide 6). That seems a bit striking.
Dan Murray
Yeah, Mr. Eisele is very astute. Believe it or not, the truck drivers sort of look at truck parking as a standalone issue. They're interested in information, capacity, etc., but the motor carrier executives almost exclusively part of an infrastructure issue because in their mind it's inadequate capacity and the solutions obviously are increased Federal fuel tax funding, dedicated truck parking, and dramatic increases in capacity (both public and private sector). So, we saw most of the motor carrier executive inserting truck parking into the infrastructure needs topic.
Michael Onder
Are policy discussions taking place as to the role of federal government in providing parking spaces, especially when coupled with Hours of Service requirements?
Dan Murray
No, they're not. And I know in the freight office FHWA they're aware of that, but there are dramatic issues associated with hours of service, 30 minute breaks, maybe two eight hour or ten hour breaks, where those are located and what the impact is when I'm pushed down the road by a state officer because I might be parked in an unauthorized location and now I'm immediately in conflict with a federal policy. I know FMCSA has dabbled in their own real-time truck parking information system, but I'm really hopeful that FMCSA will roll up its sleeves and start to look into the ramifications of regulatory compliance as it relates to truck parking because it goes beyond hours of service. With the new ELD mandate, I'm now monitored down to the minute. In the old paper log world, I had 15 minute bins which gave me a window to address truck parking. Now, at essentially 10 hours and 59 minutes, I'm in a world of hurt if I'm not already parked somewhere. We really do need to expand that discussion.
Chip Millard
Has truck parking become more of a challenge than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago? Also, is truck parking more of a challenge during certain days of the week and/or certain times of the year?
Kenny Lowry
Oh, it has definitely become more of a challenge than it was 30 years ago. Traffic in general is more of a challenge now than it was 10 years ago. Actually, as far as what day of the week – it seems like towards the weekend it's maybe not as bad. I don't know if it is because guys are getting in on the weekend and going home, but for a long time I was running down to Ft. Pierce, FL (which is almost down to Miami). I noticed going south – I go out on Sundays – all the southbound rest areas were full and there was no one in the northbound because there wasn't much coming out because he week hadn't got started. It was less maybe on the weekends than during the week. The rest of the week, it's full coming back out.
Dan Murray
I guess Nicole, I'd just showing that the truck GPS data analysis we did for MNDOT does show changing capacity and supply and demand by hour of day and day of week and they do change dramatically. As Kenny said, this is sort of a shift from what we say maybe 20 years ago. There does seem to be an increase in demand as you get closer to the weekend. Wednesdays start to get bad, Thursdays are worse, and Friday's are really bad. I think that's a function of drivers dealing with hours of service in different ways, but it is knowable through the GPS data and some other surveys that have been done across the country.
Thanks, Dan. While we have you, there's another question for you.
Michael Onder
What is the difference between an interstate that provides commercial services and one that is prohibited from providing that kind of service? My understanding according to US law is any turnpike that provided those services is grandfathered as an interstate. This practice seems outdated. Have there been policy discussions on this issue?
Jeff Purdy
I believe it was Title 23 that regulates federal funding for highway construction that was amended to include a prohibition on commercialization of rest areas. Any interstate that had commercial rest areas prior to 1960 were grandfathered in, but you could not have any new commercial rest areas built after 1960 on the interstate system. There's always been discussion about that provision in Title 23, but at this point I'm not aware of any momentum in terms of repealing that prohibition on commercialization of rest areas.
Nicole Coene
A question for everybody in particular Kenny:
How likely is a fleet manager to pay for a parking spot by means of reserving it or using electrified parking spaces?
Kenny Lowry
I'm not sure Walmart would be willing to pay for that. They may, but I'm not sure it's something that's been brought up in Safety meetings. Walmart is very willing to work with the drivers – they give us plenty of time to meet our delivery times and all that. We do have time to plan our day. You know what – that's a great question, because I've never thought about reserving a spot and then going in and handing them a ticket for that.
I think vs. running illegally; they may be willing to consider that. I'm not sure.
Dan Murray
I can tell you also Nicole, based on the driver side of the survey we did that was very specific to truck parking reservations and fee systems – about (I'm rounding my numbers to make them easy) 60% of drivers would never pay, nor believe that with the reservation system that it ought to be a reservation for pay system. The remaining drivers provided a range of how much they would value truck parking reservation at and it of course was somewhere in the vicinity of $1 to $3 on average. If you look at the systems out there today, they're more in the ball park of $10 to $15. But half the drivers who said "here's what I value – the parking space is $x. Half of them say the employer should pay, the other half said they would be willing to pay and consider it a business expense.
So, it's a very complex sort of set of equations and assumptions on who pays and how much that space is worth. There's no question that the denser the corridors or lanes (as we call them), the more value there is to reservation systems and to the space itself in terms of dollars. So, when you get to the northeast, the willingness to pay goes up considerably.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Dan. Also in a comment that Scott Green added, for people interested in this topic in the chat pod. One more question for you Dan:
Is the parking issue primarily generated by the driver time rules, or are they also a function of capacity at port / logistics centers? Can you speak to the relative importance of parking issues related to the rest reasons vs capacity problems?
Dan Murray
Well, that would be a 40-hour long webinar to answer that question. Truck parking issue is extremely complex. Kenny hit it on the head – when you look at truck registration, truck trips, truck VMTs, they've skyrocketed over the last 20 years. So, that's purely the demand side increasing substantially. The supply side looks like it's been relatively stable with some decreases in the public sector and public rest stop because it's one of the low-hanging fruits when a state has to cut its budget.
Then you're talking about dramatic changes in business models. We don't want something in 2-3 days, we want it in 2-3 hours. E-commerce is skyrocketing, Amazon is buying thousands and thousands of trucks (but they're smaller trucks). They're also buying dozens of planes. So, the consumer is shifting from a big economy to e-commerce economies. So, we're seeing dramatic changes in what are now hub and spoke systems. In the old days, FedEx had 1 terminal (in Memphis). Now they have dozens.
Walmart used to have 13 distribution centers, now they have 110. So, trips are becoming more numerous and shorter. Truck parking now is shifting around to where those DC's have been located so they can get in and get out quickly. So, it's very complex, having everything to do with hours of service, changing business models, traffic congestion, and pure growth in truck flows.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Dan. This question is for anyone that would like to answer.
Steve Brown
Can our panel point to any truck stops that are welcomed by their host community neighbors? IF so, what makes them attractive?
Nicole Coene
I'm going to guess by the silence that that is not the case. Well, unfortunately, that's the answer.
Emily Swearingen
Are There are examples of State DOT's partnering with private truck stops to expand truck parking facilities. Thomas provided an example of a Nevada DOT project and if you ever find that article Thomas, if you can send it to me as well, I'll go ahead and send it out when I send out all the other materials from this webinar.
But for anybody else if you can offer up some examples of state DOTs working with truck stops to expand parking facilities? Cheryl or Matt – do you have any examples in your state?
Cheryl Ball
Not here.
Matt Pahs
Not here either.
Nicole Coene
Next question – are apps available to identify where spaces are currently available?
So, Trucker Path has a parking availability app, it is sort of crowd sourced by the drivers themselves. You still have sort of a guessing game of what red orange yellow and green mean to the driver. Of course, the NATSO app that ATRI was involved in also has over 5000 truck parking facilities in the app and at least to 2-3 of the major chains that participate provide space availability. So, I would estimate that is 20-some percent of the facilities in there have parking availability information.
There's a new one coming, a company out of Europe that just showed up at the PR news doorstep that they would be starting up an app similar to these others in later 2017.
Nicole Coene
Next Question:
Jeff I'm going to turn to you here, there was also a lot of chat about this in the pod.
Is there a list of the FHWA programs that are eligible to fund truck parking or at least a list of programs that have been used by various states?
Paul today provided a link, just wondering if you have any other resources to provide.
Paul
Yes. Actually, the link that was just put up by Paul is the location I was going to reference. We've got a memo on our Federal Highways Truck Parking website that outlines the federal programs that are eligible for truck parking. It includes the surface transportation block grant program, the national highway performance program (as a safety improvement), states can also use their freight formula dollars – however truck parking needs to be included as part of their state freight plan because the use of freight formula dollars is supposed to be included in the plan in a fiscally constrained project list.
Also, if truck parking is identified in the state highway safety improvement plan or program, you can use highway safety dollars. So, those are just a few of the programs. But if you go to that guidance memo on our website, it will provide a full explanation of all the eligible programs.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Jeff. Question for you Cheryl.
How many rest areas have gone through the conversion and what is the mechanism for costs to be reimbursed?
Cheryl Ball
MODOT has currently converted 23 of our obsolete and expensive roadside assets. We have, so far, used our internal state budgets (our maintenance budget or general services budget) which would normally have been paying for all the things going on at a rest area – for the upkeep, things that were breaking – we were fixing them out of state dollars. We are looking at now, because of some of the programs we spoke about just a couple seconds ago, we're seeing if we can federalize some of that because the freight formula funds can be a way to use that to get reimbursement back through this federal program. So, we have not federalized it yet, but we have been using our internal, state-only funds for that.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Cheryl. We are coming up on the 2:30 time. We can stay a little longer, I hope all our participants can as well. I will continue to read out the questions we have in the chat pod and get as many answers as we can.
Has anyone seen more linking with non-traditional truck parking partners like mom and pop convenience stores or hardware stores off the highway (a mile or two down the road). Situations where space availability could be linked to 511 systems or other parking apps.
Dan Murray
I'll add a couple snippets on that. Along with what Kenny was saying about Wal-Mart facilities being available for non-Walmart trucks – in most situations the local managers are given that control. What we really need, and maybe the national truck parking coalition could spearhead this is – What are the most frequently asked questions we could get out to these managers. Questions like – the trash: do I leave a container out or not, but people who have to clean it up don't. Also, the issue of lighting, which is important to all drivers, but particularly female drivers. So, there's this list of questions that are posed, but at the end of the day, one of the very quiet considerations that these folks are doing and making is: will the asphalt pavement tolerate a bunch of 80,000 lb. five axle vehicles over and over. Many are designed for this, but many are not. I suspect this would include mom and pop convenience stores. I don't think those would be ideal locations, but that would be one of the things that maybe the coalition would be able to take on as far as where and when they could park close to the shipper locations.
Nicole Coene
Do other speakers want to comment?
Cheryl Ball
One of the things that we haven't done yet but are investigating is we are investigating with the Freight Way Coalition in St. Louis Metro area and the Mid-America Freight Coalition group as well: one of the ideas we're exploring down there is with private developers is many cities have these urban staging areas that is causing great consternation. If we can find ways to move some of those vehicles down closer to the freight generators it would free up some of the spaces on the outer fringes where a lot of the lack of space is really showing up.
So, one of the ideas is – can we approach some of those folks who are maybe the owners of these retail shopping malls that are now vacant because stores are going much more e-commerce than others (and areas like that), where a little bit of money can go into beefing up the pavement or maybe you could put in a small honor system fee. Something like that. To try and partner with some of our real-estate developers to find places that are earning them no money that maybe could earn them some token income or some other small benefits. It's one of the areas we're looking at with the locals. Some of the non-traditional areas.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Cheryl. While you're there, I have a follow-up question for you.
You mentioned that the cost of conversion was recouped in approximately 5 months. Can you explain how that happened?
Cheryl Ball
Sure. It costs us around $900k to $1 million to build or convert those over. As we're doing that, we are not having to pay for the ongoing maintenance and ongoing contract which are (in some cases) $200,000 / month. So, we've been able in about 5 months of not paying some of the lighting bills, the water bills, the repair costs on upkeep of the facility. Is it more expensive than just shutting it down? Absolutely. But we're recouping that cost through our internal budget where we would have outlaid that money over the course of 5-6 months anyways.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Cheryl.
There is a lot of conversation about automated vehicles and connected vehicles. As these technologies are introduced, how does this impact the truck parking shortfall?
Dan Murray
Well, ATRI just released a report last month that does a pretty thorough assessment of how autonomous trucks would operate and what the implications would be for everything from hours of service to EODs to truck parking. If you're at least talking Level 4 autonomy (in which case, the driver can get up, leave the front of the cab (which literally happened in CO this past October 20 on 125 miles of I-25), the driver was seen back in the sleeper birth for the whole 125-mile trip. If that were the case, over the full course of the duty cycle certainly my 30-minute break which is mandated could be done in the back of the truck or the cab somewhere. Quite possibly the two 8-10 hours (depending on how I'm dividing my hours of service) could also be done without having to stop. I'm always going to have to stop for bathroom breaks and food breaks and to deal with paper work. We foresee that many of the activities that are conducted at a fixed location with at least Level 4 autonomous vehicles. It could change things, but that is at least 5-10 years out but it could have a dramatic effect on truck parking in the distant future for sure.
Nicole Coene
Several states are cooperating in joint initiatives to examine enhance truck parking access and availability with advance information. Could a listing with multiple states' initiatives be provided to those here on the webinar?
Dan Murray
Actually, MASTO is probably the less well known initiative (mid-American states led by Kansas DOT). There are some other examples on the east and west coast, but that is probably the best example.
Nicole Coene
And then Cheryl, a question for you – have there been complaints from non-commercial drivers regarding conversions and would the conditions for conversion be the level of use for demand?
Cheryl Ball
Taking that first question, have there been complaints? Absolutely. Any time you change anything drivers complain. But, I think that as we've addressed those and we've been very transparent about the decisions, they've watched as some other states have actually shut them down. So, although these have limited service, in that they have a vault (not the port a potty that will flip over, but only a couple steps above), if they need to get off the road so they'll pull off. But it's not inviting, so the truckers tend to have it to themselves. These are all on our interstates which have quite a few private locations, whether truck stops or McDonalds or places like that. So as long as we're letting people know ahead of time it doesn't seem to be an issue.
The other piece is that the way stations we have done some of these conversions on were the stations that were exiting our state. So, we were keeping the one open coming in, but we're closing the one exiting and non-commercial drivers weren't stopping anyway. Several of the states are putting up their larger nicer newer welcome centers into those regions. So, as we've done those conversions at the same time as we were using transportation alternative funding to increase the welcome centers and it seems to settled that down a little bit. It's not an uproar. There have been a few concerns, but nothing non-manageable and we're OK with that.
The decision was based on a few things. One of them I was personally involved with is that most of these stations were in very rural parts of the state that had lagoons. They had no septic systems attached to them whatsoever. And when we looked at the new environmental regulations to get our septic lagoons brought up to speed where they could in fact be open for rest areas it was going to cost close to $1 million to redo the complete lagoon system where ours was located.
I think the cost to bring it up to code to get permitted was probably one of the major drivers of this. But, we did look at "OK, how much is this being used? Are there other alternatives close?" You have to balance all of those factors. When the choice came down to whether we can afford to do this, the choice between closing it and converting it to limited services only became pretty clear pretty quick.
Kenny Lowry
I just wanted to make a quick comment about the weigh stations. Someone said the drivers don't like staying there – I'm not sure why that is. I actually stay at the weigh stations quite often. It's the safest place you can be quite honestly. FL has done a great job. They have a comfort area with truck parking and rest rooms. It's a great location. I think guys are cutting themselves short by not making use of the availability of those truck parking space.
Cheryl Ball
That was me who said that and I agree with you. We created when we built the new rest areas, we added some new truck parking. I think it's getting better but I think some of what is related is just what we hear. From rumors that say there is some concern about being overzealous enforcement may occur (whether it's true or not). That's what was floating around.
Kenny Lowry
I think that's completely false. I can't tell you how often I stay at them. We get checked quite a bit because it goes along with our numbers. I've actually had them say "you guys are always correct; this won't take long." I've never been checked when I stayed at a weigh station for the night. I get up the next morning and leave and they just throw their hands up. It's a very safe place.
Dan Murray
I think when we mined our parking and diary data, there is a percentage of drivers who are nervous about it. They might not be from larger fleets, certainly not a private fleet like Walmart. But we certainly have anecdotal stories of driver who've gotten a tap on the window at night and its State Patrol checking on them. A couple instances where they got a level 1 inspection while they were sitting there parking. 1 instance where a driver got ticketed. As you know the drivers get on the phone or the CB and start hearing these stories and it becomes sort of an urban legend. It seems common but it's not that common.
Kenny Lowry
Why would a DOT officer wake up a driver that is asleep?
Dan Murray
I suspect it's because they're at a weigh station and the officer is wondering why they're not at a public or private rest stop.
Kenny Lowry
I think they are really selling themselves short by not staying there. That's as safe as a haven as you can be in. I've never had anyone bother me at all.
Dan Murray
One of the things we were hoping is the national truck parking coalition could take a lead on was quite candidly, among 50 state patrols and 50 state DOTs, the policies and regulations and procedures are radically different. Some states still have 2- and 4-hour maximum stays on the truck parking side of these public rest stops. Some states do not allow truck parking at weigh stations and others encourage it. It would be wonderful if we could come up with best practices. Maybe Cheryl could take the lead on some of this (not to add to your workload, Cheryl). To offer up model approaches so that 50 sates look and sound similar as to how they approach truck parking.
Cheryl Ball
Thanks, Dan. Actually, Scott Marion who works at our office of Motor Carrier Services, the Highway Transport Committee, they're trying to find ways to harmonize in a lot of happening in different states. MODOT would be happy to take a look at it. I don't know about lead it, but we'll be happy to try and dig it out because we'd love to have all of our drivers that I talk to be singing the same praises that Kenny is and I saw Scott doing on the chat box.
Nicole Coene
Thank you, Cheryl.
We've gotten through all the questions and I don't see anything else coming in. I think we will go ahead and close out. The recorded version of this event will be available within the next few weeks on the Talking Freight website.
The next seminar will be held on February 15, 2017 and the topic is tentatively scheduled to be "Freight Intermodal Connectors Study, Phase 2" Registration is not yet available but I will send a notice out through the Freight Planning LISTSERV announcing when registration is open.
I encourage you to join the Freight Planning LISTSERV if you have not already done so.
Thank you to our presenters and to everyone attending. Please enjoy the rest of your day.
