Safe parking stays on, CSA returns to list of trucking industry concerns

Nashville, TN — A lack of safe places for truck drivers to stop and rest continues to trouble the transportation industry, with the issue coming in near the top of the American Transportation Research Institute’s annual list of top trucking industry concerns.

ATRI, the research arm of the American Trucking Associations, surveyed more than 3,700 trucking industry stakeholders, including drivers, motor carriers, suppliers, driver trainers and law enforcement. The result: Parking ranked second on the list for the second year in a row.

Returning to the list after a 2023 hiatus is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Compliance Safety Accountability safety measurement system.

“Fourteen years after CSA was first implemented by FMCSA – despite numerous updates and changes to the scoring methodologies – motor carriers still have concerns with how their safety performance is evaluated and scored by the agency,” ATRI says.

Other safety-related issues that made the list: driver detention/delay at customer facilities ranked eighth and driver distraction came in 10th. The state of the economy topped the list.

The respondents proposed solutions for addressing the parking space shortage:

• Advocate for a dedicated federal funding program to increase truck parking capacity at freight-critical locations.
• Encourage local and regional governments to reduce the regulatory burdens limiting the construction and expansion of truck parking facilities.
• Support state Department of Transportation applications for U.S. DOT grants to expand truck parking.

“Each year we can count on ATRI’s analysis to not only quantify the issues, but more importantly, what we can collectively do to address each,” Gregg Troian, president of PGT Trucking and member of the ATRI research advisory committee, said in a press release.