A PROPOSED METHODOLOGY FOR IMPLEMENTING AND EVALUATING A TRUCK PARKING INFORMATION SYSTEM

During the past decade, serious concerns have been raised with respect to increasing truck traffic and the lack of truck parking spaces on highways. The main reason for this is that the inadequacy of large truck parking facilities along interstate highways may consequently lead to rising truck crashes, fatality rates, and other highway safety issues. In addition to building more truck parking facilities along highway corridors, using intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies, such as a truck parking information system, was regarded as a feasible and effective solution to the problem of truck parking shortage from both traffic engineers' and truck drivers' perspectives. However, there are very limited applications of parking information systems to trucks and along highway corridors. This study proposes a methodology for implementing and evaluating a truck parking information system. The first objective is to develop a prototype truck parking information system for highway corridors, which will help transportation agencies and engineers clarify the high-level concepts and frameworks of such a system. The second objective is to formulate an evaluation methodology to measure the effectiveness of the truck parking information system developed.