Truck Parking Club released a study it commissioned that suggests there are millions of parking spaces. The pay-to-park company then launched a public relations blitz that included posts on social media claiming that there was no parking shortage.
Truck drivers are crying foul, pointing out the pay-to-park app’s claims are “dubious,” “disconnected from reality” and damaging to the trucking industry.
Published on Aug. 19, the study “documents the significant shortage of effective large-truck parking spaces and the economic cost of the currently clearly sub-optimal situation.” The researcher made several claims, including:
- Drivers spend 56 minutes a day searching for parking, driving an extra 15 miles and parking at the “wrong location” for two hours.
- “Poor choices” are costing the trucking industry more than $100 billion in increased costs and lost revenue, including nearly $400 per day for individual truck drivers.
- There are nearly 700,000 “official” truck parking spaces for 2.4 million trucks on the road each day, creating a 1.7 million-space shortage.
- Nearly 4 million entities provide more than 23 million “parking spaces suitable for heavy trucks,” nearly all of which are not publicly available.
- Government funding is “highly unlikely.” Therefore, the government’s role should be to make it easier for the private market to use land for truck parking.
Essentially, there are millions of potential truck parking spaces unavailable on private property. If those spaces were somehow unlocked, the parking crisis would be solved. The study then goes on to say Truck Parking Club can do that and ends the study by giving out its contact information.
In a social media post, Truck Parking Club proclaimed, “There is no truck parking shortage.” The company backed that claim with data from the research it commissioned.
However, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association argues not only that there is a parking shortage but also that Truck Parking Club’s own study does not support the claim against one.
“Truck Parking Club boasted that their study determined there is no parking shortage,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said. “That conclusion is so disconnected from reality it should be dismissed as sheer delusion. However, claims like these – no matter how outlandish – have the potential to derail the progress we’ve made as an industry to address the top safety concern of professional drivers.”
‘Unacceptable and insulting’
The problem is not with the study itself. Rather, it’s with the way it was presented.
Although the study never concluded there is not a parking shortage, Truck Parking Club said it did. OOIDA responded that undermining the parking shortage and overstating the private sector’s role in solving it is damaging. Consequently, the Association is calling for Truck Parking Club to rescind the study.
“Having a business within our industry – one that already plays a role in solving this problem – suddenly say there is no truck parking shortage based on dubious research is unacceptable and insulting,” Spencer said. “TPC should rescind this study before it does any further damage to our industry’s efforts to ensure every trucker has a safe place to park.”
In its social media campaign, Truck Parking Club stated, “America actually has 23.4 million parking spaces suitable for trucks. We have nearly 10 times more capacity than we need.”
OOIDA Executive Vice President Lewie Pugh refuted that claim. Not only is there no indication that those spots are “suitable” for trucks, but even if they are, claiming there is “10 times more capacity than we need” flies in the face of reality.
Pugh pointed out that very few people read the actual study. Instead, they read the summary or press release. That includes the people on Capitol Hill.
While government funding and the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act have received bipartisan support, Pugh said there are some policymakers who may not be on board. Studies like Truck Parking Club’s, he added, are what they are seeking to derail that funding.
The study not only threatens to undo decades’ worth of advocacy and lobbying but also ignores the day-to-day reality on which truck drivers have been sounding the alarm.
For the past several years, the trucking industry has named truck parking as one of its biggest concerns.
“Our members have been clear for over a decade that there is a lack of safe truck parking in every corner of the country,” Spencer said. “This is reflected in countless studies conducted by federal, state, local and private entities.”
Pugh said the study was never meant to help the men and women behind the wheel. Rather, it was commissioned to profit from them by further monetizing what had previously been free. Paid parking, Pugh said, has a place in the industry – but it’s not the silver bullet that will end the shortage.
OOIDA said it will take all stakeholders working together to solve the truck parking crisis. That includes federal funding, local and state government cooperation and private sector investment, including paid parking.
Fatal flaws
Although the study acknowledges a truck parking shortage, OOIDA’s Foundation found numerous errors and inconsistencies that raise serious concerns.
In addition to claiming a deficit of 1.7 million truck parking spaces, the study acknowledges the nationwide shortage several times, including in the abstract. However, it also states, “We know for sure that there is sufficient truck parking, because the freight does move.”
While it is true that freight does move, the drivers moving that freight often find themselves parked in unauthorized, unsafe locations. The Foundation argues that is not a sign of sufficient parking.
“That rhetoric contradicts federal inventories and industry surveys: truck parking has ranked as a top driver concern for years; over 75% of drivers report nighttime difficulty; and unauthorized/unsafe parking is widespread when legal options are missing. The record shows that drivers often keep rolling to find parking or resort to unsafe locations – not that sufficiency exists.”
The Association also raises concerns about the 23.4 million publicly unavailable parking spaces and 700,000 official spaces. Those numbers derive from the “author’s commonsense estimates” and proprietary models.
In other words, there is no way to verify or replicate the data. That’s because the data is nearly impossible to ascertain. Essentially, the researcher was tasked to do the impossible: count every parking spot on every private lot.
In fact, the researcher acknowledges these limitations. The study mentions its results “are subject to uncertainties up to 25%.” That represents a relatively high level of uncertainty, suggesting low confidence in the data.
“The result is not decision-grade research; it is a stack of assumptions that yields big, headline-ready numbers while obscuring the practical overnight rest constraint documented elsewhere in the report,” the Foundation states.
The Foundation’s full review of the study can be found here. LL
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