Private solutions step up to plug the truck parking shortage gap

The U.S. trucking industry is battling a chronic parking shortage that’s costing drivers time, money, and safety. In 2025, the American Transportation Research Institute ranked truck parking as the No. 2 concern among professional truck drivers, with drivers losing an average of 56 minutes every day hunting for a spot. That lost time translates to roughly $5,600 per driver annually, according to ATRI’s earlier report. The problem is worsening as freight volumes rise and the national stock of truck parking spaces fails to keep pace. “This has been an issue for a long time, for decades really,” said Darrin Roth, vice president of highway policy for the American Trucking Associations. “It’s getting worse and worse because the miles traveled by trucks keep growing, and the number of spaces nationwide isn’t growing fast enough to accommodate those drivers.” The industry is turning to both public and private solutions. The American Trucking Associations is pushing for federal grants to expand public truck parking capacity, but acknowledges that private-sector innovation is already delivering fast, scalable relief. New app-based platforms such as Truck Parking Club and Trucker Path are filling gaps by aggregating underused private properties—warehouses, terminals, repair shops, self-storage facilities, and truck stops—into reservation-based networks. Truck Parking Club CEO Evan Shelley estimates the U.S. needs more than one million dedicated truck parking spaces to meet demand. His company’s commissioned research puts the annual cost of parking inefficiencies at over $100 billion. Truck Parking Club now connects drivers and fleet managers to more than 6,000 reservable locations across the country, offering tools for booking, dispatching, and real-time facility updates. “We’ve really built all the tools needed to be successful with all things truck parking, not just providing the optionality,” Shelley said. Trucker Path, which launched in 2013 with crowdsourced parking availability maps, added predictive data and reservation features in June 2026. The platform now lists over 100,000 reservable spots and supports overnight and long-term paid bookings, integrating directly into existing apps and storefronts. “A lot of time is wasted looking for spaces at the end of the day, and a lot of drivers end up having to park somewhere where it’s not the safest,” said Chris Oliver, chief marketing officer at Trucker Path. “But 50-plus minutes a day is a massive chunk of the driver’s available hours on a daily basis.” While federal and state investments are expanding public truck parking in key corridors, industry leaders stress that private-sector services are essential to scale capacity quickly. “The private sector is not funded by tax dollars,” Oliver said. “There are costs involved in the private sector that have to get covered somehow. I think it has to be done. Otherwise, like I said, I don’t think the public sector can scratch that itch fully.”