The Commission standards for safe truck parking areas are also an opportunity to align them with the goals of Europe’s Green Deal.
The Commission is developing new standards for safe and secure truck parking areas in Europe. Its main aim is to ensure there are safe and good resting conditions for European truck drivers. The Commission’s ambition is to upgrade 300,000 truck parking places and create 100,000 new ones in Europe based on the new standards.
The signatories of the letter urge the Commission to consider two important things:
1. The installation of charging stations for refrigerated trucks in all upgraded or new parking areas. Right now 95% of equipment used on refrigerated trailers in Europe are equipped with a plug but cannot charge or run on electricity during rest times, because of a lack of infrastructure. Equipping all parking areas with access to electrical plug for electric cooling could save 69% CO2, 93% NOx and 96% of PM emissions per net operating hour.
2. Plan ahead for the future deployment of electric charging and hydrogen refuelling stations for zero-emission trucks. In practice that means that, while upgrading and building parking areas, there would be a requirement to assess the available grid capacity. Having this information will facilitate the deployment of the infrastructure in the future and limit costs (upgrading the electricity grid at a future stage can be very costly).
