More truck parking spaces planned along the motorways

Many trucks drive long distances within Europe for deliveries.

But there are too few parking spaces in Germany for breaks along the autobahn.

That should change now.

Berlin - Thousands of parking spaces for trucks are missing along German autobahns - the result is often overcrowded rest areas.

In the coming years, additional truck parking spaces are to be created at truck stops or in commercial areas. The Federal Ministry of Transport published a new funding guideline on Monday. 90 million euros will be made available by 2024. The newspapers of the Funke media group had previously reported on it. The ministry had already announced the program at the end of 2020.

According to the ministry, the aim is to create additional truck parking spaces within a three-kilometer radius of motorway junctions. According to the ministry, the federal government has invested around 1.2 billion euros in new truck parking spaces over the past twelve years. The demand is increasing faster than can be built. Therefore, the ministry now wants to approach private investors in order to create new parking spaces off the highways near interchanges - for example in commercial areas or at truck stops. In addition, transport companies are to provide parking spaces for third-party trucks at their depots.

Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) explained: "During the corona pandemic, we saw how important a functioning freight traffic is." The truck drivers are tirelessly on the move to bring goods to their destination. “This makes it all the more important to take breaks where you can recharge your batteries. The prerequisite for this is that the truckers actually find a parking space - and not have to park somewhere “wild west” because of overcrowded parking spaces, because otherwise they violate their driving and rest times.

According to a nationwide survey of the truck parking situation in 2018, around 51,600 parking spaces were available on the motorways, especially at rest areas. In addition to the motorways - for example at truck stops - there were around 19,200 parking spaces. At that time, however, there were no 23,000 parking spaces. According to the ministry, around 2,300 new truck parking spaces were created between 2018 and 2020. dpa