Truck Stops

Truck stop, truck stop with warning

The first incarnation of RVTrek was as TruckTrek, a similar resources database to enable commercial truck drivers the same sorts of information that is being offered to RVers. Thus, truck stops are well supported in RVTrek, since they are basic to truck driving. In trucking, truck stops are classified by size of the parking area, sorts of fuel handled, whether they have negotiated agreements on costs with the various trucking companies, and whether the jave scales and/or washout facilities. These are all irrelevant to RVers, who simply want to know if diesel and/or propane is available and if there are RV dumpsites. For the truck stops shown in RVTrek, diesel fuel and large vehicle parking facilities are assumed available. Propane and dump facilities will be added in future updates. In addition truck stops often act as mini-shopping malls, attracting businesses which cater to truckers and highway travelers in general, like fast food establishments, restaurants, barbers, medical services and electronics stores.

Truck stops vary from small Mom-and-Pop fueling stations to whole national chains of stops. The chains have large monetary reserves and are rich enough to purchase land as close as possible to convenient interstate highway interchanges. The smaller entities also occur at major exits, but also at smaller secondary road intersections. Many of these latter are franchised businesses supported by multinational oil companies. The major chains include Flying J, TA (formerly Travel Centers of America), Petro (recently bought by TA but still flying their own flag) and Pilot. Smaller chains include Sapp Brothers and Bosselmans's. There are several associations of independently owned truck stops, like AmBest, PTP and Roady's. RVTrek starts out with the truck stop chains, since they are easily coded and are the most used facilities in the trucking community. As time goes on, RVTrek will include more and more of the off-interstate businesses.

Since truck stops are commercial and not official, they only occur on the Interstate Highway System at interchanges, and so the normal state/highway/mile marker locating scheme can be used to locate them, at least roughly. The only exceptions are those that occur within Service Areas. On the secondary highway system, truck stops can occur virtually anywhere, so mile markers are used when known and otherwise highway intersections are common. Sometimes only mailing addresses are available.

The information that is displayed in a truck stop's icon's "Info" bubble includes:

• Name and brand of the truck stop, the words "truck stop". Abbreviations used are TS for truck stop, TP for truck or travel plaza, and so on.
• The truck stop's location in terms of highway/mile marker, and town and state.
• Phone number and optionally a fax number proceeded by "F:".
• A place for remarks about the truck stop which make this stop different from other stops. One thing noted here is whether there is a charge for overnight parking, if we know about it - you surely will not find such on the stop's web page!
• A clickable URL pointing to a local web page which contains all the above information, plus:
  • An active URL* pointing to the web page that describes this truck stop's facilities and services, if one exists.
  • URL's* for Google maps and MS Maps web pages which display an overhead view of the location. It's amazing how many words can be saved by a picture.

* - URL's are only available to be used when the computer is connected to the internet.

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