According to an investigation in March 2008 at that time by the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs about 14,000 truck parking spaces are missing in the near of motorways in Germany. Beside constructional enlargement of rest areas the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) encourage the use of intelligent traffic systems (ITS). ITS ought to be used to detect automatically the occupancy rate of rest areas and to provide better demand management and also to achieve an increase of capacity of truck parking spaces. The occupancy rate of rest areas within a motorway section should be automatically detected by special sensors. The detected data on the availability of truck parking spaces are processed into information. These parking information can be transmitted to the truck drivers and logistics companies through various communication channels (e.g. via electronic displays on the highway or internet). For the freight industry, this means improved ability to plan the driving and rest periods for truck drivers. Furthermore a balanced utilization of rest areas will be achieved on motorways by parking information and the occurrence of dangerous situations with trucks parked in the driveways of rest areas can be prevented. Overall, the safety for all road users can be improved on the motorway. Tried and tested detectors, such as inductive loops, facing new challenges at rest areas. For this purpose, it required new technical developments which take into account the specific constraints on a rest area and the demands on the information quality of parking information. New detectors have been tested in pilot projects of the federal states. The Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) has accompanied the pilot projects from a scientific viewpoint with the focus of a future evaluation. For this purpose, a unified evaluation process for ITS on rest areas was developed. The evaluation process allows - in contrast to tests in accordance with the Technical Delivery Conditions for Roadway Stations (TLS) – to focus on the assessment of the overall concept, i.e. the interaction of the detection, control methods, and communication to road users can be systematically analyzed. Result of the Federal Highway Research Institute activities was the development of a new control procedure "Compact Parking", which extends the existing range of ITS on rest areas. The method achieves that a number of trucks are parking in a compact way, side by side and without a driving lane between them. With the help of dynamic displays above the parking rows, the drivers receive the needful information to park their vehicle in a parking row, in which other trucks have the same or an earlier departure time. This system can increase the rest area capacity in short-term and more quickly than constructional enlargement of rest areas. As a coordinating organization of the German Location Code List and a member of the International Traveller Information Services Association (TISA), the Federal Highway Research Institute supports the development of services for the provision of parking information to the vehicles. The report summarizes the state of knowledge gained on measures to increase occupancy and capacity of rest areas on motorways. The report is based on literature research, own investigations and activities of the Federal Highway Research Institute and interviews with operators and providers of ITS for rest areas. First, the technologies currently used for detection and communication, and control methods are presented. In addition possible future technologies are considered and discussed. Based on that a concept was developed which will allow better ITS based capacity management on rest areas of a motorway section in future. It takes into account the availability of all rest areas of a motorway section and gives in-vehicle information and recommendation for users. Based on the state of the art one possible implementation version is described to demonstrate the required developments. Proposals for designing of parking information complete the concept. It is intended to update the report in terms of a catalog of measures with advancing knowledge. The report intended to provide guidance in system design, in particular, to operators and service providers. At the same time, it intends to initiate further developments for in-vehicle parking information. The unified evaluation process should enable future comparative assessment of ITS on rest areas and contribute to the continuous improvement of the systems. For time reporting the final results of the uniform evaluation process of all pilot projects are still to come and will be supplemented with an update of the report. (Author/publisher)
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