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Earlier this year, the American Transportation Research Institute asked people with CDL driver jobs to keep a two-week diary of their parking experiences in an effort to collect valuable data.

Land Line magazine published the findings in a news article that shows truckers lose nearly $5,000 a year looking for parking.

Nearly 150 diaries, representing 2,035 days and 4,763 unique stops, submitted.

Noncommercial vehicles take up much needed space, ELDs exacerbate the problem, and truckers  spend less time searching than other studies suggest. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the study, Land Line wrote, was the amount of driving time available per hours-of-service regulation after parking.

Nearly 3/4 of respondents lost 1-2 hours of driving time. Furthermore, 40% report a loss of 31-60 minutes and 32% lose 61-120 minutes.

That’s an average loss of $4,600 a year, according to ATRI. The research institute calculated average truck speeds at nearly 40 mph, 250 days worked/year, and loss time of 56 minutes/day. This generated an average loss of 9,300 revenue-producing miles.

With average wages of $0.499 per mile an hour, ATRI concluded a nearly $5,000/year loss. Another surprising result in ATRI’s study was time spent finding a parking spot. More than half claimed they found a spot within 5-10 minutes, 15.5% within 11-15 minutes and 18.3% within 16-30 minutes. These findings directly contrast studies conducted by the Kansas Department of Transportation and the Mid America Association of State Transportation Officials.

In June, KDOT released a study indicating that truckers were spending an average of 30 minutes searching for safe parking. A MAASTO study showed more than half of respondents spend more than 30 minutes looking for parking.

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