The University of Pennsylvania’s Steve Viscelli, a sociologist and former truck driver, proposed another fix. We could reduce the demand for truck parking spaces — even without reducing how much freight is moved by truck…

He said that it’s a “fundamental sign of inefficiency” that trucks are parked for so many hours a day — especially considering many of those drivers are waiting, often unpaid, for shipments.

So, instead of merely increasing the amount of truck parking, Viscelli said we should reduce the number of drivers who have to work overnight. In the good ol’ days, before deregulation drove down the cost of trucking labor, companies had planned routes that relayed shipments across the U.S.

Let’s say we have two trailers: one headed east and one headed west. A Detroit-based driver hauling the westbound trailer could drive to Chicago. There, the driver meets a St. Louis-based driver who has an eastbound trailer. They can swap their trailers and head back to their home terminals, where they again swap their trailers with another driver.