The European Safe Parking Organization (ESPORG) awarded the first edition of the European Truck Parking Award to Truck Etape Béziers in France. IRU participated in the judging panel alongside other key stakeholders in the field of road transport, including governmental and non-governmental institutions.
The Truck Stop Excellence Award initiative aims to promote excellence and help disseminate good practices relating to improving the safety, security and quality of service provided by truck stop operators to professional truck drivers across Europe. This year’s winner of the European Truck Parking Award is the Truck Etape Béziers truck parking facility, located in the south of France near the French-Spanish border. La Londonienne in France and Smart Autohof in Romania have received the European Certificate of Excellence in Truck Parking as runner-up. The jury stressed that all candidates demonstrated excellent quality of service for professional drivers.
Lack of parking spaces for trucks remains a problem for the road transport sector. With only 300,000 truck parking spaces currently available in the EU, there is a significant shortfall of 100,000 spaces to meet overall demand. Only 7,000, less than 3%, of existing parking spaces in the EU are in areas certified to be safe and secure. The IRU has urged policymakers to provide additional support to improve conditions in the sector by calling for EU funding to build and upgrade new, safe parking areas.
The IRU appreciates that the EU has responded by making funding available via the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) instrument, but more remains to be done to ensure sufficient facilities for professional drivers. Investment priorities should include developing new safe parking areas, and improving safety, security and services in existing rest areas. This is in line with the recommendations of the EU-funded study on EU parking standards, in which the IRU participated.
Raluca Marian, EU Advocacy Director at the IRU, said: “Good parking spaces are a prerequisite for decent working conditions for our drivers. As a sector, we cannot imagine solutions to the huge driver shortage across the EU without addressing these conditions. The Best Truck Parking Award stands for This year’s European Championship is a concrete tool to reinforce the serious efforts made by the industry to provide adequate rest facilities for professional drivers. We hope that this award will stimulate further investment and ultimately help enhance the image of the profession and attract new drivers.
The IRU will continue to work closely with all partners and stakeholders, to promote the establishment of new and upgraded safe parking areas across Europe.
