With increasing cargo and delivery demand, truck parking along highways has been a growing problem in Europe and the US. Like all scarce resources, this requires meticulous management to increase capacity and optimize usage.

The Issues

Insufficient parking spaces
Road and driver safety, fatigue, and delayed rest breaks
Search traffic, pollution, unauthorized parking
Economic losses for industry and consumers
The crux: Missing information about vacant parking on route.

Truck drivers face a difficult challenge when on the road to deliver their cargo. It boils down to scarce parking along main traffic arteries, such as motorways and highways.

Tight schedules and insufficient parking make it difficult for a driver to find a suitable spot when needed. Drivers may be forced to find a rest place in a hurry and, thus, lead to search traffic, unsafe or unauthorized parking, or driving while fatigued, risking their own and others safety on the road.

When drivers are obliged to divert from designated truck parking to areas without infrastructure, it leads to search traffic, littering, increased noise and air pollution, and traffic congestion.

In addition, the lack of available truck parking leads to economic losses for the industry through increased travel time, fuel consumption, costs for detours and missed delivery windows, and direct lost compensation for truck drivers, costing them an average of $4,600 in the US (Source: American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI)).

The lack of parking spaces is often cited as the primary issue; however, a German study found unexpected variability in parking usage within short distances. One rest area may be fully occupied while a neighboring one is nearly empty.

So really, the crucial issue of the matter is real-time information on live availability.

The Solution

Upgrading exisiting or new traffic cameras to parking sensors and receiving real-time information about available parking spaces with Parquery's. Use cases:

Guide drivers,
Forecast the availability trend for journey planning,
Optimize usage of the rest areas,
Detect unsafely parked trucks (e.g., on ramps)
Identify non-truck vehicles (e.g., RV on truck parking spots),
Create safer and more efficient roadways for everyone.

Highway rest areas with live availability information

Effectively managing and allocating available parking spaces requires parking guidance systems with real-time availability and reliable forecasting.

Parquery's smart parking solution utilizes AI-powered cameras to monitor parking spaces 24/7, detect the presence of vehicles, and track dwell times.

What sets this solution apart are its quick and easy deployment - we can even use existing cameras - and its cost. This makes it an ideal choice for truckers' rest areas, which often already have cameras for security purposes. As a result, shortly after project kick-off, drivers can be guided to their spots cost-effectively and timely.

Find a vacant parking bay on the route with ease

Truck drivers are well rested thanks to real-time parking occupation information

Photo: aleksandarlittlewolf on Freepik

Smart parking provides real-time information to drivers about available parking spots using dynamic guidance panels or smartphone apps. Additionally to live data, forecasting can determine the expected occupancy at arrival time. Hence, taking into account the journey time for rest areas that are farther away.

Therefore, enabling drivers to plan rest breaks more efficiently and reducing the risk of driving while fatigued. This benefits drivers, improves road safety, and reduces economic and environmental impact.

Technical challenges in truck parking

Technical challenges exist for camera-based truck parking due to the variety and range of trucks in terms of size and appearance. The height of the vehicles requires cameras to be mounted very high, and their positioning becomes crucial: A large truck soon hides a smaller vehicle when seen from the side (lateral / in profile).

However, our deep learning AI solution can adapt to different vehicle appearances – and indeed any object – with enough calibration or training data. Would you like to know more about how this works?

How our AI works

Selected References

Parquery’s real-time smart parking solution has been tried and tested by road authorities in the US and Europe. A small selection of the several European countries who are currently piloting our solution. Contractual agreements do not allow us to list all.

Ohio, US - Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT)

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is a state government agency responsible for the development and maintenance of the transportation infrastructure in Ohio, including highways, airports, and public transit systems.

ODOT’s truck rest areas are equipped with traffic monitoring cameras, which made it particularly easy and fast to deploy Parquery’s smart truck parking. It was simply a question of setting up our cloud servers to receive the cameras’ images and adapt the software to the local circumstances and the system was ready to go. Within a short period of time, drivers could see the live availability.

Roadside digital message boards show the number of available spots and guide drivers to vacant parking bays. The data is integrated with Parquery’s Application Programming Interface (API). The parking area ‘s main utilization are overnight rests, and some short pit stops at lunchtime.

Read the entire success story of 16 rest stop areas being monitored with Parquery.
The need, the solution, and the impact.
Read on

Existing cameras meant that the pilot project in Ohio could be set up in no time at all

Austria, Europe - ASFINAG

The Austrian ASFINAG is a public infrastructure construction company responsible for the construction, maintenance, and operation of the Austrian motorway and expressway network.

They are piloting Parquery’s truck parking solution at one of their truck rest areas in southern Austria. Demand is highest during the night and on weekends, when a driving ban is in place for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). The aim of this ban is to reduce noise and air pollution during the night, and to improve road safety. Rest areas are in high demand then, and effective signaling of vacant spots is crucial to the drivers.

Parquery’s interactive dashboard with onboard parking data analytics makes it easy to analyze the utilization, find patterns, issues, and potential for improvement.

More about the Dashboard

The demand peaks during the night and on weekends, when trucks are prohibited from driving

Existing traffic monitoring cameras are used for parking occupancy detection. Photo source: Asfinag Webcam

Delaware, US - Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT)

The Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) manages the US state’s transportation infrastructure and safety programs, and provides travel information to the public.

Parquery has been working in partnership with WiseMoving Prime Technologies, a leading developer and provider of innovative technology-focused solutions for smart parking solutions in the US since early 2022.

Together, they have been using Axis cameras to monitor a truck stop operated by the Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) since 2022. The truck stop in Smyrna, DE is located between Washington D.C and Philadelphia, PA. DelDOT integrated the real-time parking availability to inform truck drivers of vacant spots through DelDOT’s Integrated Travel Map and downloadable app.

Truck drivers easily find a place to rest at night on their route on Delaware’s highways.

Why Parquery truck parking?

Parquery's real-time smart parking solution has been piloted along US and European motorways. It is set apart from conventional solutions like ground sensors or induction loops:

Non-specialist hardware: Parquery can be used with any camera brand, eliminating the need for specialized sensors and hardware providers. The most appropriate camera model can be selected for each location, thus minimizing the number of optical sensors needed.
Efficient coverage with little hardware: One camera can monitor up to 50 truck parking bays depending on its installation, whereas three to four ground sensors or large magnetic loops are often needed to cover one spot.
Cameras are easy to install and maintain, unlike sensors embedded in the road surface that require serious road work. Induction loops need long grooves to be cut, and ground sensors large holes to be drilled. Replacing a camera is even easier than installing one, whereas opening up the road surface for ground sensors is more involved.
Quick to deploy and test; if cameras are already installed, the process is even faster. Verify system reliability and accuracy through a pilot project instead of investing in specialist hardware and road work outright.
Reliable infrastructure: Cameras are highly dependable, except in extreme cases like blizzards or complete darkness. In contrast, ground sensors and inductive loops can be affected by interference from nearby objects and can fail if covered with snow, dirt, or leaves.
Dual-purpose hardware, adding value to existing equipment: Cameras are often already installed for security purposes, and if not, it might be a good idea to do so for the safety of drivers.
Integration with Video Management Systems (VMS): Parquery can be integrated with common VMS such as Milestone.
Flexible architecture: Parquery's software is flexible and can be deployed on a variety of architectures, including embedded processing in cameras or edge computers for security-critical areas, and on-premise servers or Parquery's cloud servers for less sensitive areas.
Accurate data for all vehicles: thanks to its capacity to learn, Parquery’s solution provides accurate occupancy and duration data for all types of vehicles, including cars, vans, buses, motorcycles, and trucks.

How do I get started?

Get in touch with us and we will be at your side.

If you need hardware, we work with a company near you that will take care of all the technical details, of buying and installing the right equipment, and that will be your local contact on-site.

If you have cameras already installed on site, you are good to go.

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