The Invisible Crisis: Why Thousands of Trucks are Forced onto Highway Ramps For Parking

Nate Veeh from Geotab joins us to pull back the curtain on a massive industry headache: the truck parking crisis. We aren't just talking about a lack of space; we are looking at the hard data from over 6,000,000 connected vehicles managed by Geotab globally.

In this episode, Nate explains how Geotab’s "Altitude" platform provides mobility insights to transportation planners and authorities to better understand their networks. We dive into the findings of a recent year-long study that reveals the nation's biggest parking "hot spots"—including why Indiana ranks #1 among all 50 states for ramp parking events.

We also discuss the "Driver’s Dilemma": the collision between strict Hours of Service (HOS) regulations and a critical lack of infrastructure that forces drivers to choose between an illegal ramp park or a safety violation. If you want to see how big data is being used to tackle these infrastructure gaps and improve fleet safety, you need to hear this conversation.

Contact Nate Veeh
nateveeh@geotab.com
https://altitude.geotab.com/ 
https://altitude.geotab.com/demo/

Your Host
Chris Harris, Safety Dawg
chris@safetydawg.com
905 973 7056
* 
00:00 – Introduction: Investigating the "why" behind highway ramp parking.

01:05 – Meet Nate Bay: Background on Geotab and the scale of their global telematics data.

03:00 – Altitude by Geotab: How data helps government and private sectors solve infrastructure gaps.

04:30 – The National Study: Uncovering the persistent challenges across North American highways.

06:00 – Ranking the Hotspots: Why Indiana and Atlanta are the epicenters of the parking crisis.

11:15 – The Driver's Dilemma: How Hours of Service (HOS) mandates force unsafe parking decisions.

14:40 – Urban vs. Rural Challenges: Breaking down the specific needs of different metropolitan corridors.

19:20 – Future Solutions: Moving from identifying problems to implementing data-driven infrastructure.

23:15 – The Force Multiplier: How collaboration between data providers and fleets improves industry safety.

25:30 – Closing Remarks: Summary of key takeaways and final thoughts.

Transcript

0:00

Hey, have you ever wondered why there's so many damn trucks parked on the highway ramps in this episode of the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast? We are joined by Nate Vay. Bird diving into the massive North American wide problem, the critical lack of truck parking and infrastructure, using data from over 6000000 connected vehicle, Nate reveals why hotspots like Indiana and Atlanta are struggling with excessive ramp parking and how hours of service regulations are forcing drivers into difficult choices. Don't miss this deep dive into the data driven future of fleet safety and infrastructure. Coming up next. Welcome to the Trekking Risk and Insurance podcast. Hey, Nate Veigh, welcome to the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast. Can you take a sec and introduce yourself to our viewers, please? Absolutely, Chris, thank you for having me. Um, name's Nate Bay. I'm the AVP of Business Development for Altitude by Geotab. Um, currently based in in Sunny Los Angeles. I'm looking forward to being on the show with you here today, for some of the listeners in today. My background is primarily in and around fleet and freight for the last little over a decade. So, um, spanning from LTL to international shipments with DHL Express, and then the last 8 years has been with Geotab. So looking forward to to being here, thanks for having me. Well, you're welcome. I love the topic that we are addressing, because I really believe it is a huge problem right now, and we're talking about truck parking, uh, with the information that you and Geotab and, um, your company are able to divulge from the Geotab properties. What can you say about? Let's start it off with ramp parking. Ramp parking. Why do we have it? And is it a problem? Great question. So before I get into the, to answering, if we have it and where we have it and how much we have it. Um, just on the aspect of of geotaps. So for the listeners, that might not be familiar. Uh, Geotop is the largest commercial fleet and freight telematics provider. We have about 6000000 connective vehicles under management. ranging the gamut from many of the long haul truckers to last mile delivery to service leets and everywhere in between. So really good proxy on that. And then military vehicles are covered, and in, okay, here's a question we don't have, have, maybe you know the answer. How many countries does GeoTab operate in? So we're actually found in 160 countries in all, on all 7 continents. Globally, though, globally and growing. So yeah, there's there's obviously some countries that we don't operate in, but the largest presence today is is US and Canada. We have a major market share in Latin America, um, over in Europe as well, UK, Spain, and then growing pretty aggressively as well in APAC. Okay, an APAC stands for? Asia Pacific. Thank you. Because I won, I have trouble with acronyms only because not everyone necessarily knows the acronyms. Um, and that one APAC. I'd forgotten myself. So that's why I had to ask. Anyways, let's get back to truck parking, ramp parking, and do tab info. Yeah, so, okay, so, um, so the way that we can, uh, kind of get an understanding the market, we have a platform called. Altitude by Geotab. And what that platform does is it basically taps into that 6000000 vehicles that we have under management and we provide mobility insights, typically to transportation planners and authorities in the departments of transportation to understand their network. So we have all this really rich data or fingertips. Um, and we wanted to go and, um, see how the ramp parking is across the United States. So we recently did a study on that. One, we're interested in it too, because a lot of the DOTs have requirements to go and understand like how their network supports truck parking. There's federal requirements under that. And so we went and looked at the insights from altitude from all the geotop vehicles that we have to see kind of how that's happening. Um, Anecdotally, we get a lot of like fleets saying, hey, there's issues on the interstate, and, you know, if you're driving down anywhere, um, across the country, where you see maybe some trucks parking on the side of the road and or on the ramps. So, we went and took a look at all of the data for a year over the past year, and we saw that it was really a persistent, big challenge, issues all across the country. Um, every single state, um, you know, is facing these challenges. There isn't enough infrastructure in place to kind of support the demand of all the truck parking. So, um, so yeah, so we we saw just off the bat there that it wasn't kind of like just really just one particular area that was having the issues with the ramp parking. But it was affected nationally as well. But we do have what I would call hot spots. because you said your, um, altitude software highlighted, especially just south of us or where I am, Indianapolis. What's happening down there? On Indiana in particular. So we did the study, looked at one, which of the top states had the most ramp parking events, um, and then also which of the top metros in, in the United States had the most rampant events as well. Indiana, rank number one for the top, um, of all 50 states. Indianapolis, the city, ranked number 2 of all states, just followed by, um, Atlanta was was the one that had the most events. So, Indiana. They call it the crossroads of America. Like there's just a lot of freight. I think there's 4 interstates that converge together. So, a lot of increasing in the economy, moving goods around, a lot of distribution centers, warehouses, and there just hasn't been, um, I would say, either private sector and or public sector, uh, infrastructure there to support all the increase in the demand. And so driven through that, there's just excessive amounts of parking events on ramps because the infrastructure isn't there to support it. Um, So yeah, so I'd say that's probably the top reason. Also, not sure if you or the listener. are familiar with all of, like, the hours of service regulations that are mandated, both in US and Canada. So you have to abide by like certain times where you have to stop and take a mandatory break. Um, and you have to long these hours, if you exceed them and you get pulled over by highway patrol, you get flagged and dinged on, and fine for all that. So, they're basically, I think it's a good thing to have in place, like, you don't want people driving when they're, you know, tired or things like that. It cause a lot of safety concerns. But because there isn't the infrastructure in place, they're running up against ours of service, service limitations, they have to take that mandated break for 8 hours or their 30 minute rest break, they have to park somewhere, and if there's not infrastructure in place for them to park, then by default, that's going to happen somewhere else along the side of the road or on a ramp. Well, let me ask this. Why is it such a big deal to park on a ramp? I mean, here, I'm just using my imagination, a tractor trailer parked on the ramp. It's probably not going to be a level parking, and therefore my bed's not level, but that's not the real concern. I'm sure thinking about the uh, the health and the rest of the truck driver. What's the real concern about ramp parking? There's a few different concerns. The top 2 that come to mind for me is really safety. Um, one of safety for that driver. Obviously, it's, um, you know, you get an off a ramp. There's not a lot of space to maneuver around, sometimes there's curves on those on or off ramps, likely there are, on the curvature of the road. And so, when you're parking there. Um, and a lot of the instances that we note in our data as well, was that they were happening like around 8 PM, um, or later at night, when they're wrestling, and so it's dark, and then you start throwing in these, um, events, whether it's raining or snowing, that just becomes a big safety issue for the driver. Um, and then also the passenger vehicles that are getting off those on ramps as well. So safety is definitely like the key consideration. Um, there's a lot of collisions and or even fatalities that are due to this issue every single year. Um, so that's that's number one. Number two, I would say is just like the cost of maintaining the infrastructure. The on ramps off ramps weren't meant to really have these £33,000 or more tractor trailers, um, resting on them for those periods. And so it's going to kind of eat into the pavement there. And then it's going to cost more for the DOTs to go out and maintain those those roads. Um, obviously eating into some of the taxpayer dollars um, on that as well. So, really the top 2 safety and then the maintenance of actual maintaining those ramps as well. And just going back to the safety issue of the parking. My background, I worked about 13 years for one of the major trucking insurgers. And every year, a truck parks on a ramp and gets hit and some of them are catastrophic losses. Um, so I know what you mean by the safety losses. Uh, you know, so Indianapolis stands out beyond indie, what does, what are some of the other hotspots for rant parking? Yeah, some other ones. So the top 5 states, all this that have the highest number of ramp events that we noted, um, so Indiana, number one, Illinois, number two, Tennessee, number three, California, 4 and Pennsylvania, number five. So those are the top 5 states. Top 5 Metro areas, Atlanta, Indianapolis, New York, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles. So I think, yeah. I was going to say something political about Washington, but you know, um, I'll bite my tongue. That's that's all right. I'll explain why I think that is the instant so for for those top five. So, a lot of those dates, um, are growing economically, you know, there's high density and population, high density and freight. And so when you look at a lot of the areas like Tennessee or Los Angeles or Washington, DC, that infrastructure was built to support urban planning. You know, the the medium, duty trucks, lie duty trucks, the people moving around, they weren't really thought of as supporting some of those larger trucks and those trucks by default or really meant to support them, moving goods in and out of the city. So why that because the infrastructure wasn't built to support that. Now you have this, this issue kind of arising where infrastructure for the high density of, um, these metros isn't meant to support these freight vehicles. And so where are they going to go park? And, and by default, again, they're looking at alternatives that they have to. So really, it's kind of putting into perspective. You know, don't neglect the freight trucks that are moving in. There are priority, and let's go and figure out some some areas that can go and actually support it, get creative in the sense of how we do it too. Yeah, I mean, I can see not having parking lots for tractor trailers in downtown Washington as an example. Uh, certainly, nobody could afford to pay the parking fee for something like that. Uh, but on the outskirts, of course, uh, that's where the truck parking tends to be, but there just isn't enough spots. You mentioned earlier that these ramp events start happening around 8 p.m. And that's because the parking lots are full now. And of course, the parking lots, from what I'm told from different shippers and carriers, start filling at 5. Because the drivers keep arriving earlier and earlier now trying to get a parking spot. Right? Does your data support any of that? What I just ramble up there? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we have we have both. Um, we see it. Multiple metrics from our our data. Some of it is, like when a truck parks for call it, um, 9 to 12 hours. They're typically driving about 520 miles before that journey, like, and then they're driving about 10 hours is what we see kind of in their journey to do that. And so we have, we had probably around, um, 6000000 total ramp event parking events that we had in the data in close to, 330,000 of those were the long duration ones. On that. So, um, so we see a bit of a bit of both on that, but that, to answer your question is, we do see a lot of other trucks that are stopping before their hours of service is getting to that point because they may know that there's a spot that they can park at 5 PM as opposed to 8 PM, and then they're going to lose 2 hours of productivity because of that. But they only, they're doing it because they don't want to go and park on, on the side of the road or or a ramp. And so, yeah, so they are losing some of that that productivity piece of it too, just because the infrastructure isn't there to support them either. Or, um, a lot of parking lots now are taking fees where you can reserve a truck parking spot. Well, of course, that's just adding on to the cost of shipping. Now. Yeah. It is. Yeah, there's there's organizations out there that are trying to figure out and work with other, call it real estate organizations, you may own a warehouse, you may own a dirt plot that's off the side of the road. So trying to figure out some, like an Airbnb of truck parking as well that you paid to park, essentially. It's a good creative idea, obviously, but it does drive costs in that sense too. Um, what I was most excited about recently as well is that Congress passed a state funded bill of about $200 million. Uh dedicated solely to truck parking infrastructure, building it out. So, uh, state DOTs and MPOs, the metropolitan planning organizations, and other local agencies can go and apply for this $2000000 is kind of a 1st come, 1st serve basis, and then build specifically to support truck parking. So, I find that really interesting, but, um, I think this dates or others that will get awarded, that discretionary funds are going to have to be really tactical and strategic about how, where they go and look for, because it's not just like, let's go and build a spot here, try and build five, go and identify the areas that have the highest demand, um, that are causing the biggest safety issues on that, and then go and include that kind of in your, um, your response to get the funds, that and build out something that's gonna support, um, the issues that are actually happening. Well, let's hope Indy gets some of that, uh, some of those funds so they can build out some extra parking spots. Yeah, you know, you know, it's interesting. I was actually talking to, um, some folks over at in dot, um, earlier this week, and they are making strides to open up new infrastructure and, um, some of their welcome centers and they're actually dedicating us on those spots to truck parking. So they're already starting to tackle that. I think they're going to be interested to see if the investments that they're making derive the outcomes that they want. And so being able to use data and analytics to see like, okay, we did this and it caused that. Now let's go and get more funds because we prove that it worked is going to be interesting. They're definitely one of the DOTs that realize it started being strides to improve it. And of course, something like that to measure it takes a cup, takes. I was going to say years. I have no idea, but it takes a significant period of time for you to gather enough data so that the information is valuable. 100%. Yeah, it's not going to just happen. Overnight, you go and get awards, you have to go build the infrastructure and then see if those patterns change. Yeah, after months, years. And of course, as trucking continues. Um, currently, I think, slowly growing, but it's continuing to grow, uh, pretty much all of the time is we keep adding more humans to the world and, uh, manufacturing continues to grow. We keep adding more trucks on, and truck parking just hasn't kept up. And I really think they're gonna have a difficult time building out enough truck parking quickly. to make up for the past that we haven't done it, and for the future as well. Does Geotab offer any insights into that type of stuff? Yeah, I mean, we understand the overall growth of trucks and commercial vehicles like in the market, you can go back and look at commercial registration. Um, like there's there's data sources for that. What I think geotap provides, um, a lends into to actually where these these vehicles are operating, which you need to have some form of like location-based insights in order to do that. So, a truck may be registered in New York, but operates in California. It's not always like, you may have more registration, but were they actually doing it? So, I think it's one thing to know like, Data on how much commercial fleets are growing, you can go and get that. But then also coupling in terms of like where they actually operate. And so providing that piece of it is where they're operating, how they operate, where they operate, is really what, um, I would say like these transportation planners, the state government, the federal government, need to better understand so they could put programs into place. whether it's led through states building their own infrastructure, or doing some type of like private public partnership that allows other private entities to go and build infrastructure for it as well. Yeah, I mean, to your point, the insurance company that I worked for, um, we primary, our primary market was cross-border trucking. So I'm located in Ontario, and our average fleet would cross border, and 80% of their miles were US miles, not here in Ontario at all. So that's the type of data you're talking about. It doesn't matter where they're registered. It's where in the heck are they going? Where they where they go? Are they driving? Where they stopping? Where do they have to stop? Yeah. Yeah, and of course, you can imagine from southern Ontario. We don't grow a lot of produce here, although the people out in Leamington, Ontario, would argue with me. But we know that there's a lot of produce coming from California up to southern Ontario. That's what we tend to eat. So that's long haul trucking. It was long haul trucking. And there's multiple trips and journeys they have to make in order to get it from central California, all the way to Ontario. Yeah. So where are they going to stop along the way is the question. And is there perfect? And that's the 2nd question is, is there parking? Yeah. Or are they parking on the ramp? So let me ask you this. From your perspective, is this the lack of parking, is it a safety problem, an infrastructure problem, or failure in our governments, um, to plan properly? Uh, yeah, I'll start by saying, I think I had mentioned a bit about it. So safety is like the biggest concern, not just from the thought of getting collisions on the side of it, but also just like the, imagine you're a truck driver and you're parked long ramp at night. And there's a lot of activity going on and off that ramp. So it's really loud engines too. And so like your quality of life and sleep is gonna, um, also depreciate at that point too. So that causes, you know, drivers to be more tired when they're when they're driving even on the regular hours. Um, the infrastructure piece of it, um, the wear and tear, the maintenance on that is going to cost more tax period dollars. And then from uh, you mentioned, is it, you know, um, by fault, the way of of the government piece of it. I don't necessarily agree the fact that it's the government's fault that this is occurring. Um, I do agree that maybe there hasn't been enough attention on it from the federal government. And there are certain requirements that they put it in place now. I believe every 2 years, state departments of transportation have to do a truck parking study in their state to understand where this is happening. Okay. Now, a lot of that could be like, again, I think anecdotal, or they awoke with consultants who go and do like a one-time study. They haven't had a good data source to support them to understand where it's actually happening. So I think, um, if there is a good data source out there, multiple data sources that can do that. They should take advantage advantage of that so they can be proactive in the planning. Now, if they know about the data source and they still neglect to use that, then I think that is, um, obviously something that isn't beneficial for anybody, and they should be doing that. So, creating more awareness from the federal level and things like that and providing funding on it, I think you still have an opportunity to catch up, but it's going to take a few, um, you know, years to get to the point where we have an infrastructure in place to actually support it too, but it's got to happen. Now, it can't be like, let's look at this again in, you know, two, 3 years, and then we're so far behind that you're always playing catch up. Yeah, and it's, it's, I mean, it's not just in the US. Here in Ontario, we have a truck parking issue. Um, to huge problem depending on what area, uh, especially up in northern Ontario where there just isn't a lot of places to stop safely. So we've got the same issues up here. Look, Nate Veg, if you could prioritize one type of investment tomorrow. What would what do you think would move the needle the fastest? So I think it's a good start on this $200000000 truck parking fund that was recently passed. Um, I would say gonna need more than that to address this problem. So the 1st thing I would say is that the states that have probably the highest number of events of ramp parking, and other just call like side of the highway parking as well, is to go and apply for these grants, um, and the funds, and be really tactical about it. You know, choose one, two, three, four, 5 sites at most, probably, because you're gonna have to get some of those funds to go and deploy first. So be very tactical and strategic. Go and build that out, prove out the outcomes of it that it actually made a change for the better. And then use that as a driving force to go and get more funds, bring it to the attention to the federal government, to try and say, hey, this is working, but we need more. Yeah, I mean, this is a whole challenge. It's an unbelievable problem, but right now, you're, I can tell, an optimistic type guy. As we wrap this up, what do you think? Um, what gives you optimism about this issue? Uh, yeah, so I think what is giving me optimism. It's not just one person, one agency, one company, that's advocating for for this. Um, yeah, folks like the American Trucking Association, who are doing a lot of advocating and lobbying. Uh, you have now the attention of the federal government who are actually providing funds for it. And then also, um, we work a lot with a lot of like the travel center and operators themselves too. And so they understand the shortages, um, that are happening, and so also looking to expand some of their parking, um, offerings too, to, to support some of the traffic that might be offloaded onto the, the traffic network today. So I think it's getting visibility in the right place. Um, maybe some people operate in silos. And so I think bringing it together, is where I imagine, I think, we, um, at Geotop can be kind of a, a forced multiplier of that, in getting some of these federal, private entities all working together to support our end customers or partners who are really the fleets. Yeah, and I mean, the beauty of geotap is that you've got the data. Uh, and that's, that's hugely important. Nate Vei from GeoTech. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you having me. I really enjoyed the discussion and hopefully we can make it happen again sometime soon. And thank you so much, Nate Vei from Geotap for coming on to the show this week. Uh, your insights and uh, data regarding truck parking. I found it. It's an incredible problem that we have currently, and Geotab is helping us highlight it. All right, so that's it. Next week, we will be back if you are getting value from the show, please. Click, like and subscribe. Maybe most importantly, if you really are getting value, would you please leave us a comment? Nate's info is in the show notes down below as I do for all of our guests every week, and we'll see you again next week. Thanks for tuning in to the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast.