Dr. Scott Washburn served as the principal investigator for a recently completed Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) grant-funded project, which tested three different in-pavement systems to detect the presence of vehicles in commercial truck parking spaces at interstate rest stops.

“As the demand for the movement of freight by truck traffic continues to increase, and the supply of truck drivers is struggling to keep pace, truck drivers are under constant pressure to maximize their legally-allowed driving time each day,” Washburn said. “Time spent searching for overnight parking can be a stressful and anxious experience for truck drivers.”

Rest areas along Florida’s interstate routes are heavily utilized by commercial trucks for overnight parking. Being able to communicate commercial truck parking space availability to drivers in advance of arriving at a rest area would reduce unnecessary stops at full rest areas as well as driver anxiety. In order to do this, vehicle detection technology is necessary to correctly reflect the parking status of the rest area. Three different in-pavement systems (SensIT, Sensys and CivicSmart)  were tested.

The chosen test site was a rest area along I-75 in Columbia County, the home to FDOT District 2. The detection technologies listed above were installed at locations within the rest area, and video cameras were used to corroborate the results. A month of data was gathered and analysis showed that all three of the tested technologies were able to detect vehicles at 95 percent accuracy or greater. The vendors associated with each of the technologies can eventually work with FDOT to integrate parking availability data into the state’s SunGuide® software system so that users can access this information via the FL-511 app.

For more information about active and completed FDOT research projects, please visit the Research Center at http://www.fdot.gov/research.

Project Information:
Project Title: Commercial Truck Parking Detection Technology Evaluation for Columbia County Rest Areas
Summary
Final Report