The goal was to identify the scale and locations of unauthorised truck parking on two major freight corridors, helping improve safety, compliance, and infrastructure planning.
Our Approach:
- Parking Location Extraction – Analysed GPS trip data to identify vehicle stop locations along I-35 and I-80.
- Clustering for Privacy – Used spatial clustering techniques to aggregate parking points, removing identifiers and ensuring driver privacy.
- Authorised Parking Identification – Cross-referenced stops with known authorised customer or facility sites, removing these from the unauthorised dataset.
- Dashboard Development – Built a visualisation dashboard for FMCSA, enabling interactive analysis of unauthorised parking hotspots.
Key Findings:
- Detailed Unauthorised Parking Map – Produced a corridor-wide view of high-risk parking areas, particularly under overpasses and on ramps.
- Clear Separation of Authorised vs Unauthorised Stops – Focused the analysis on genuinely problematic parking behaviour by filtering out customer site stops.
- Actionable Insights – Provided evidence for targeted enforcement and infrastructure upgrades in the most impacted locations.
Impact:
- Enhanced Road Safety Planning – Equipped TTI and FMCSA with precise data to address parking shortages and reduce unsafe stopping.
- Privacy-Conscious Methodology – Delivered valuable insights without compromising driver or customer confidentiality.
- Scalability for National Analysis – Proved the method could be expanded to other corridors or nationwide studies.
