Eren Ozguven, Ph.D., director of the Resilient Infrastructure & Disaster Response Center (RIDER), (left) and Mehmet Burak Kaya, Ph.D., pose at the I-10 eastbound rest area in Tallahassee. Using advanced mapping and data analysis, the team examined how truck parking availability and road conditions intersect with crash patterns. (Scott Holstein/FAMU-FSU College of Engineering)
Key Points
A new study from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering examined how truck parking access affects fatigue-related crashes along Florida’s major freight corridors, including Interstate 10 and Interstate 95.
Led by doctoral candidate Mehmet Burak Kaya and Associate Professor Eren Ozguven, the research team analyzed truck crash data from 2019 to 2023 alongside parking capacity and facility data.
The study found that more public rest area parking alone showed no clear link to fewer fatigue-related crashes, and that road segments with higher private truck stop capacity were actually associated with more of these crashes.
The findings, published in June 2026 in the Journal of Transportation Safety & Security, suggest transportation agencies should prioritize real-time parking availability information and easier access over simply adding more spaces.
he research was funded by the Rural Safe Efficient and Advanced Transportation (R-SEAT) Center, a U.S. Department of Transportation-funded Tier-1 University Transportation Center.
More truck parking spots aren’t making Florida highways safer—easier access to the spots that already exist might.
Why Truck Driver Fatigue Is a Highway Safety Problem
Picture driving a Florida highway at night, hours from the next rest stop, with nowhere safe to pull over. For thousands of commercial truck drivers, that scenario is routine—and it carries life-or-death stakes.
Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering are examining this problem directly. Their new study finds that improving truck parking access, not just adding more of it, could reduce fatigue-related crashes on Florida’s busiest freight corridors. Using corridor mapping and statistical analysis, the team studied how parking availability and road conditions relate to crash patterns.
“Truck driver fatigue is not just an industry problem; it is a major public safety issue that affects everyone on the road,” said Eren Ozguven, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering and director of the Resilient Infrastructure & Disaster Response (RIDER) Center at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. “Fatigue-related truck crashes are disproportionately severe and carry immense financial and human costs. Safer resting conditions for truck drivers mean safer highways for every motorist.”
Ozguven co-authored the study with Mehmet Burak Kaya, then a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering who led the research. Kaya said the goal was to determine how highway conditions and resting options—including parking spot counts, facility amenities and truck traffic volume—actually relate to where fatigue-related crashes occur along Florida’s key freight corridors.
The team also included Mohammadreza Koloushani, a researcher at the college and a roadway engineer at Patel, Greene and Associates, and Ren Moses, a professor at the college and director of the R-SEAT Center, a Tier-1 transportation center affiliated with the U.S. Department of Transportation‘s University Transportation Center program.
The study, “Assessing Truck Parking Facility Impacts on Fatigue-Related Crashes: A Florida Corridor Study,” was published in June 2026 in the Journal of Transportation Safety & Security.
What Gap Did the Researchers Set Out to Address?
“For a long time, transportation planning has focused mainly on public rest areas and simple spot counts,” Ozguven said. “But drivers operate in a mixed ecosystem of both public rest stops and private commercial facilities. We hoped to evaluate this full picture along major freight corridors to see if current parking availability is actually helping reduce fatigue-related crashes where it matters most.”
Ozguven said the team also aimed to give transportation agencies actionable, data-driven insights into how parking capacity, facility quality and truck traffic connect to fatigue-related crashes.
How Did Researchers Study Truck Parking and Crash Data?
The team studied how features of truck parking areas along Florida‘s freight routes were associated with fatigue-related commercial vehicle crashes between 2019 and 2023. They mapped the corridors and used statistical analysis to identify associations between parking features and crash counts.
This corridor-based approach treats major freight highways, such as I-10 and I-95 in Florida, as continuous, connected routes rather than isolated points on a map. Researchers used negative binomial regression, a statistical method for analyzing count data such as crash totals, to understand how parking features might influence fatigue-related crash counts along those corridors.
By mapping and analyzing the routes, researchers identified patterns pointing to where increased or improved truck parking access could make Florida roads safer.
“We used negative binomial because crashes are rare and unpredictable, so standard averages do not give an accurate picture,” Kaya said. “This statistical model helped us mathematically connect fatigue-related crashes with factors like parking capacity and facility types while filtering out background factors like daily truck volume and segment length. That allowed us to ask, ‘Once we adjust for road length and heavy traffic, does the availability of truck parking still make a difference in fatigue crashes?‘”
“These highways carry massive volumes of long-haul freight traffic every day, making them prime locations for studying truck driver fatigue,” Kaya said. “Along this corridor, the team considered nearby resting opportunities, both private and public, where truck drivers can reach without diverting from their route.”
What Did the Study Find About Truck Parking and Crashes?
The researchers found that simply having more parking at public rest areas showed no clear link to fewer fatigue-related crashes.
“What makes our study so important is that it challenges the common assumption that simply ‘building more parking lots’ will solve the problem,” Ozguven said. “Our work shows that DOTs should focus on smart solutions that increase the accessibility of private stops, because accessibility means more than just raw space.”
“Private truck stops are naturally built along high-demand, heavily congested freight hotspots,” Kaya said. “Just because a private facility has 100 parking spots doesn‘t mean a tired driver can easily use one. Spots fill up fast, or they might be reserved or fee-based, and drivers often lack real-time information to know if a spot is open before pulling off the highway.”
“Surprisingly, road segments with higher private truck stop capacity were actually associated with more fatigue-related crashes,” Kaya said. “Although that sounds counterintuitive at first, it shows that parking capacity is not the same as effective access.”
The team‘s conclusion: Solving truck driver fatigue isn‘t just about building more total parking spaces on paper. It‘s about providing real-time visibility, clear wayfinding and usable access to open spots when drivers need them most.
The team‘s conclusion: Solving truck driver fatigue isn‘t just about building more total parking spaces on paper. It‘s about providing real-time visibility, clear wayfinding and usable access to open spots when drivers need them most.
What‘s Next for This Research?
“Truck drivers are under constant pressure because of strict delivery deadlines, mandatory rest requirements and limited parking availability,” Ozguven said. “Using truck driver GPS trajectories would help us understand how they are responding to those problems. By seeing where drivers detour, where they struggle to find rest and where parking demand spikes, we can help policymakers allocate funding and technology far more effectively.”
The researchers plan to study how truck drivers navigate parking constraints in real time, building on the study‘s findings about access and visibility.
This research was funded by the Rural Safe Efficient and Advanced Transportation (R-SEAT) Center, a Tier-1 University Transportation Center funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Editor’s Note: This article was edited with a custom prompt for Claude Sonnet 5, an AI assistant created by Anthropic. The AI optimized the article for SEO/GEO discoverability, improved clarity, structure and readability while preserving the original reporting and factual content. All information and viewpoints remain those of the author and publication. This article was edited and fact-checked by college staff before being published. This disclosure is part of our commitment to transparency in our editorial process. Last edited: 09/04/2026.
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FAQ
The study found that simply increasing the total number of public rest area parking spots is not clearly linked to fewer fatigue-related truck crashes. Instead, road segments with more private truck stop capacity were associated with more fatigue-related crashes, suggesting that real-time availability and ease of access matter more than raw parking space.
When tired truck drivers cannot find an open, accessible place to rest, they may continue driving while fatigued or pull off in unsafe locations. Researchers say factors like whether a spot is reserved, fee-based or difficult to locate in real time can prevent drivers from using available parking, even when capacity exists on paper.
The study was led by Mehmet Burak Kaya, a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, along with Eren Ozguven, an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering and director of the Resilient Infrastructure & Disaster Response (RIDER) Center; Mohammadreza Koloushani, a researcher at the college and roadway engineer at Patel, Greene and Associates; and Ren Moses, a professor at the college and director of the R-SEAT Center.
Researchers focused on major Florida freight corridors, including Interstate 10 and Interstate 95, analyzing them as continuous routes rather than isolated locations to understand crash patterns along their full length.
The team analyzed commercial vehicle crash data attributed to driver fatigue between 2019 and 2023, combined with data on truck parking capacity, facility types and traffic volume along Florida freight corridors.
The study, “Assessing Truck Parking Facility Impacts on Fatigue-Related Crashes: A Florida Corridor Study,” was published in June 2026 in the Journal of Transportation Safety & Security.