General background: why is this project happening?
A detection of the occupancy of the truck parking lots is required that is as precise and autonomous as possible. Autobahn GmbH is therefore pursuing the strategy of swift, needs-based equipping of rest areas along the most important routes that are heavily used by heavy traffic.

There are currently around 1,900 rest areas on German motorways – this includes rest areas with and without service facilities – with up to over 300 truck parking spaces per rest area.

Objectives, Results expected, Project description
The first implementation phase included in MERIDIAN focused on on-site monitoring by means of rotating lasers. However, after examining and assessing the different technical approaches to implementing the monitoring system for truck parking spaces at roadside rest areas, the Federal Ministry has identified the toll data-based system as the preferred option. Using this tracking of occupancy based on toll data is equally reliable due to quality and reliability of the available toll data. Moreover, the investment and operating costs of this data-based solution are significantly lower than for any solution requiring physical infrastructure at roadside rest areas, further benefitting the ecologically sustainable aspects of implementations avoiding the need for deployment and cost-intensive operation of technical infrastructure. By avoiding the construction of technical infrastructure, CO2 emission is reduced and the EU Green Deal is supported. The further implementation will be done by the Federal Logistics and Mobility Office (BALM) and using the toll data-based system will provide the same information to facilitate a reduction of parking search traffic caused by trucks as initially planned. The occupancy data on truck parking spaces at roadside rest areas will be also provided publicly via the Federal ‘Mobilithek’ platform, the German National Access Point (NAP).