Truck Stops

Truck stop with no (or unknown) parking,
small (50 or less), medium (50 to 100), large (100 to 150),
extra large (more than 150), truck stop with warning

Truck stops are commercial entities which provide truckers with fuel, space to park overnight, convenience stores slanted towards truckers needs, and other facilities/services, such as showers and laundromats. They 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.

The display on the left is of a small area near Perrysburg, OH, at the intersection of I-80 and I-280. At that intersection there are at least four truck stops. The X's displayed in the center of the symbols indicate that those stops have parking for 150 or more trucks each; the M stop has space for from 50 to 100 more. The one with the white X (rather than blue) is a fuel stop for the company which this copy of TruckTrek was made for. One of the stops has it's Info box open, indicating that it is a Flying J on I-280 at exit x1B. The phone and FAX numbers are given, with a link to this particular truck stop's web page, which tells much more about its amenities. There are also two links for overhead imagery.

We define a truck stop as a commercial fuel stop dispensing diesel fuel from facilities that will accommodate full sized rigs; this includes those which may not have satellite pumps. All other features are optional to the definition.

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. TruckTrek 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, TruckTrek 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 icons that define where a truck stop occurs in TruckTrek carry some of the important information a trucker wants to know, as mentioned above. The symbol at the center of the icon defines the size of the stop's overnight parking capacity as none, small (0-50), medium (50-100), large (100-150) and extra large (> 150). Note that these numbers are often larger, sometimes up to 100%, than the number of marked parking spaces. A red circle around the symbol indicates that something about the stop is not "as expected"; usually it is that a stop is reported in an area but cannot be visually identified so precise location cannot be pinned down. Finally, the circle and symbol in the center is white when the truck stop is on the approved fuel stop list for the trucking company that the trucker belongs to (an optional feature of TruckTrek); in the non-approved case the circle and symbol are light blue.

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" or "fuel 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!
• 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.

When zooming far into a truck stop, sometimes additional information becomes available. In the picture on the left, a truck stop (the one at upper left on the picture at the top of this page) shows that it has a truck scale and a truck wash on the premises. Note that when zoomed out, such a truck stop still displays a small "pip" at the lower right and/or left, red for a truck wash and blue for a scale.

TruckTrek and the contents of this help file are
Copyright©2006 by ThistleKeep Engineering; all rights are reserved.
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