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Truck stop operators like ���DZ���’s are expanding parking capacity and focusing on building driver loyalty. (Love's Travel Stops)

After a long day on the road hauling a load across the Midwest, professional truck ­driver Charles Rudd still has a couple of hours of driving time available under federal hours-of-service limits. But instead of trying to go another hundred miles or so, his thoughts have shifted from beating traffic to beating the clock.

“It’s a nightmare after 4 or 5 p.m.,” Rudd said. “You have this limited time to be driving, and you’re penalized if you do anything over that time. There’s this crunch at the end of your shift to try to figure out where can you park the truck legally,” he said.

The estimates the average driver spends 50 minutes of each day looking for parking, with just one parking spot available for every 11 drivers.

“I actually account for two hours. I never let it get down to that last hour,” Rudd said. “When I get down to hour nine, that’s when I start really figuring out where I’m going to park.”

This scenario plays out every day across the nation’s highways.

About 8-10% of a driver’s potential daily productivity is spent driving around trying to find a place to shut down, said Chris Oliver, chief marketing officer at Trucker Path, a trip-planning mobile app for truck drivers.

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Multiply that across a large fleet with hundreds of drivers, and companies are looking at thousands upon thousands of dollars of lost revenue every year, he added.

Oliver recommended that fleet managers become more proactive when it comes to locating and securing parking for their drivers. Tools that help drivers find parking don’t just improve convenience, they can also improve fleet efficiency, he said.

“That time compounds across the fleet,” Oliver said. “From an operational perspective, that’s a tremendous improvement in efficiency.”

The Trucker Path app is a navigation and information platform that combines truck-safe routing and nearly real-time parking data, helping drivers find safe places to shut down.

“We have ���DZ���’s, Pilot, the public rest areas and all the big spots that everyone knows about,” Oliver said. “We also have hotels that offer spaces available or casinos and things that aren’t your traditional places where a truck can park, but they’re allowed to legally and safely.”

Trucker Path has more than a million users provide crowdsourced, geofenced data to show whether truck parking locations are full or have spaces available. It updates locations with space availability as drivers check in to park.

To Oliver, the challenge is not just finding more parking, but making better use of space that already exists. That gap is where newer private-sector models are emerging.

“There’s a lot of space out there that already exists, but it’s not networked together,” Oliver said. “Drivers don’t know it’s available, and property owners don’t have a way to make it usable for truck parking.”

Oliver said it would be more efficient to have 50 locations with 10 spaces versus one location with 500 parking spaces “because they’re much more likely to be where drivers actually need to shut down.”

Connecting Truck Parking

Large truck stop operators also are expanding capacity, focusing on free parking as a way to support drivers and build long-term loyalty.

“We recognize truck parking continues to rank among professional drivers’ highest concerns,” said Tim Doty, vice president of corporate development and growth initiatives at ���DZ���’s.

The truck stop chain has ex­panded its parking capacity through new loca­tions and, when possible, remodeled locations and retroactive parking additions, he added.

���DZ���’s currently operates more than 50,000 free truck parking spaces nationwide and typic­ally adds between 1,200 and 1,500 spaces each year. In 2025, the company announced plans to open 20 new locations and remodel 35 existing stores, adding about 1,500 parking spaces to its network. The company also provides parking updates on its ���DZ���’s app so drivers are aware of space availability. Love's ranks No. 28 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America.

RELATED: ���DZ���’s to Add 1,500 Parking Spaces, 20 Locations in 2026

Many of the parking spaces on Trucker Path are free, but the com­pany recently started a new partnership with Truck Parking Club, a paid parking network that focuses on opening up private property for overnight truck parking.

Rather than building new facilities, the company acts as a short-term rental marketplace for existing lots. Property owners agree to rent a set amount of truck parking on a daily, weekly or even ­monthly basis. Those spaces are reservable through the platform, giving drivers a guaranteed place to shut down before their hours run out and property owners an extra revenue stream for unused space.

“Historically, paid parking was viewed as a last-resort option,” said Reed Loustalot, chief marketing officer at Truck Parking Club. “What we’re seeing now is drivers using it as a planning tool, so they know exactly where they’re going to shut down instead of wasting time circling full truck stops.”

RELATED: Lack of Truck Parking Costs $100B a Year, Truck Parking Club Report Finds

The company started in 2023 with 150 locations, reached 1,100 by 2024 and closed out 2025 with 3,700 locations.

“Ultimately, our goal is to have a location within 10 minutes of a driver anywhere in the country,” Loustalot said.

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Truck Parking Club Chief Marketing Officer Reed Loustalot says paid spots save driving time. (Truck Parking Club)

Truck Parking Club offers many options, some with amenities such as restrooms and on-site dining, and others with just basic parking.

These parking locations include everything “from a trucking company who’s got yard space to a towing company, to a self-storage operator, to a warehouse, to a CDL school, to a racetrack, to a minor league baseball stadium to Amish markets,” Loustalot said.

Drivers making Truck Parking Club reservations often pay out of their own pockets.

“If paying $20 to reserve a spot means I don’t waste hours circling full truck stops and can use all 11 hours of my drive time, the return on that is immediate,” Loustalot said.

While Truck Parking Club has been marketing mostly to drivers, Loustalot said the company has begun reaching out directly to fleets to show the benefit of planning drivers’ parking along with their routes.

Reimbursing drivers’ parking costs has been a challenge for fleets, especially with the administrative aspects of managing receipts and verifying expenses, but Loustalot said the company has found a way to cut through the paperwork.

“We’ve got infrastructure now where we can go to a fleet, set them up … and onboard as many drivers as they want,” he said.

Customers determine the method that works best for them — either monthly prepaid deposits into driver app wallets or by pay-as-you-go methods. There’s also a way for fleet managers to book locations for drivers, Loustalot said.

Whether parking is free or paid, at a major truck stop or somewhere off the beaten path, the outcome is the same from the driver’s seat.

“I don’t care what kind of lot it is,” Rudd said. “I just need a legal place to park so I’m not stressing about it at the end of the day.”