The SCM capstone Predicting Truck Parking Availability to Improve Driver Safety and Delivery Reliability was authored by Bhavya Budhia and Samantha Clarke and supervised by Dr. Angela Acocella (acocella@mit.edu) and Tim Russell (trussell@mit.edu). For more information on this research, please contact the capstone advisors.

The clock is running out, but there’s nowhere to stop

Imagine you are a truck driver. You have been on the road for several hours and only have an hour left on your hours-of-service (HOS) clock, meaning you need to stop soon and rest. You are still hundreds of miles from your destination and have no reliable way of knowing whether the next truck stop you come across will have enough parking for you. Stopping early wastes valuable driving time. Cutting it close risks an HOS violation or unsafe parking decision. This is the difficult reality truck drivers face every day.

In the U.S., truck drivers are essential for keeping supply chains moving. In 2024, nearly 75% of U.S. domestic freight by weight moved by truck.

Despite their critical role, drivers face a pressing daily challenge: finding safe and adequate parking. Recent estimates find there is just 1 truck parking space available for every 11 drivers on the road, and 90% of drivers report struggling to find parking at night.

When safe parking is unavailable, especially at the end of a long workday, drivers face a difficult choice: park in an unsafe area, park illegally, or risk violating HOS regulations. All three outcomes have tangible safety and financial consequences for drivers and the supply chains they serve.

Making every mile count and every stop matter

Why not just build more truck stops? The median cost to construct a single truck parking spot is nearly $94K, meaning this option is highly expensive and time-consuming.

To address this issue, we develop a driver tool that takes in a driver’s location, destination, remaining HOS drive time, and personal preferences to reliably rank truck stops along the route. The tool recommends when and where the driver should park to best utilize their driving time.

We consider several distinct factors to rank truck stops and answer these questions for drivers:

1. Will there be parking when I arrive?
2. Can I legally reach this stop within my remaining HOS?
3. Does this truck stop meet my preferences?

One of the core components is parking availability, predicted using historical data. We also consider on-site amenities at each truck stop, as well as a driver’s personal preference towards those amenities.

To keep drivers on a logical route, the model favors stops that bring them closer to their destination without overshooting. Historical traffic congestion around each stop is used to create realistic travel time estimates. And, we prioritize truck stops that help drivers to maximize use of their remaining HOS.

We allow drivers to make tradeoffs amongst these priorities, to adjust while on the road, and to make informed decisions.

Rest easy: Putting drivers back in control

The final model offers a user-friendly interface that drivers can consult in real time to create a personalized ranking of truck stops, tailored to their route and their preferences. We deliver these rankings in feasibility frontier maps, which are color-coded, lane-specific views of preferred truck stops that match a driver’s remaining HOS.

Our analysis uncovered several key findings. Corridor structure (i.e., the physical highway network) emerges as a dominant driver of truck stop accessibility. When there is only one main route from origin to destination, we find drivers face higher competition for premium parking locations as well as a greater sensitivity to parking shortages. On the other hand, when they have greater routing flexibility (i.e., multiple route options), drivers have a lower dependence on any single stop.

Additionally, the highest-ranking truck stops remain relatively stable throughout the day, despite changes in traffic congestion. The most preferable truck stops in the network have structural advantages that create ranking resilience, not just temporary swings.

Beyond these insights, our capstone provides drivers with something they do not have today: confidence in where they are going, so they can park safely, rest, and get back on the road.