The European Commission has presented the latest statistics on the shortage of truck parking spaces. The figures presented are extremely high, and all this turns out to be part of a deeper problem.
According to estimates by Brussels officials, meeting the current needs for access to safe parking spaces in all EU countries will require the construction of more than 390,000 new parking spaces. In addition, the European Commission recognizes that the problem will worsen even more in the coming decades. If the current pace of investment and the projected development of the transport sector is maintained, the shortage of parking spaces will amount to approximately 480 thousand by 2040 (i.e. over the next 15 years). I emphasize that we are talking about HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of lost paradises. Meanwhile, the European Commission itself has announced that it will support the fight against this problem by co-financing 65 parking projects. It is not difficult to calculate that even if each of these projects had 200 parking spaces, this would fill about 3% of the gaps. The statistics presented in Brussels coincide with the figures recently presented in Germany. The government has prepared long-term forecasts for the transport sector, stating that the scale of domestic road freight transport could increase by 34 percent by 2040. And this assumes that the efficiency of German railways will improve over the same period, recording a 35 percent increase in train traffic, thus taking over an additional share of orders from trucks. In Germany, negative forecasts can also be seen for the filling of parking spaces. According to statistics developed last year (the article is available here ), the current pace of construction will solve the problem in 40 years.
Now let's look at all this more broadly. The above information clearly shows that the authorities are aware of the critical shortage of truck parking spaces. Judging also by the lack of sufficient investment, the authorities have clearly decided to ignore this problem. Obviously, the assumption is that if drivers have coped so far, they will somehow cope in the future. And at the same time, there is an increasing number of alarms under the heading "there are not enough young drivers, the industry is on the verge of collapse." Statistics clearly show that the average age of truck drivers is rapidly increasing and in just a few yearsThere will be no one to replace the retired drivers. For example, in Poland, drivers under 25 make up only 3 percent of the entire professional group (article here ). Why are young people so reluctant to enter this profession? We are talking, of course, about working conditions, where the main problems are poor treatment of drivers at loading and unloading points and the lack of parking infrastructure. So, in short: we are faced with a gigantic problem, one of the main reasons for which is well diagnosed, but it is being ignored.