Truck Parking Demand Modeling Using Microscopic Traffic Simulation: A Case Study of the New York State Thruway

There is limited guidance on using microscopic traffic simulation software to model truck parking demand along freeway corridors. Truck park- ing demand has been observed at travel plazas manually, with counters, GPS, or vehicle detection technologies. However, this approach offers insight on the actual occupancy instead of the desired occupancy. The logic of drivers’ behavior while searching for parking is dynamic, meaning that individual responses are planned based on current supply. In this sense, dynamic microscopic traffic simulation would be required. To address this gap, we developed a methodology to model truck parking demand along freeway corridors using traffic simulation. The methodology was applied to the tolled section of the New York State (NYS) Thruway. This section is a 570-mile (917-kilometer) limited-access highway crossing NYS with 27 travel plazas providing both short- and long-term truck parking (Figure 1). To develop the truck parking demand model, we first created a dynamic traffic assignment network in PTV Vissim, a multimodal traffic flow simulation soft- ware. Open Data NY was used to obtain the number and types of vehicles that entered through each entry point with their corresponding destination exit points. Using this dataset, we generated a trip chain file for one full day in 2016—specifically September 2, 2016. We then developed a COM interface script to update the driving time of every truck within the network. If the driving time exceeds a certain threshold based on a defined hours-of-service (HOS) schedule, the truck is routed to park at the next downstream travel plaza. Based on the results of our model, the maximum truck parking demand was calculated for every travel plaza within different time periods. Table 1 sum- marizes the results. Between 8:00 p.m.–12:00 a.m., demand exceeds capacity of 23 travel plazas. For 10 travel plazas, the number of hours over capacity is more than 5. The travel plazas that present the highest parking shortage are Angola (westbound), Angola (eastbound), Plattekill, Clarence, and Sloatsburg, where desired truck parking demand is higher than five-times capacity. The purpose of this work was to demonstrate a gen- eral methodology of how traffic microsimulation can be used to perform truck parking demand analysis. This methodology could be of interest for agencies, practitioners, and researchers to better determine parking shortages along a complete freeway. In fol- low-up work, we model a truck parking information management systems and evaluate its impacts on truck parking violations. This study focused on the travel plazas within the tolled section of the NYS Thruway, but future work should consider privately-operated truck rest areas outside of this highway system. Since there is no carryover of trucks from the previous day, i.e. trucks     «

There is limited guidance on using microscopic traffic simulation software to model truck parking demand along freeway corridors. Truck park- ing demand has been observed at travel plazas manually, with counters, GPS, or vehicle detection technologies. However, this approach offers insight on the actual occupancy instead of the desired occupancy. The logic of drivers’ behavior while searching for parking is dynamic, meaning that individual responses are planned based on current supply....     »