The Modern Truck Stop: Clean, Well-Lit

June 14, 2000 10:00 AM, EDT

The atmosphere at many of today’s trucks stops differs little from a suburban shopping mall. Truck stops and malls are usually clean, well-lighted places with a wide variety of goods and services for sale and many different opportunities for amusement and entertainment. They are centers of human activity where the motion is constant and so is the turnover in clientele. In some cases, they are meeting places, perhaps with some sense of community.

And they sit amid vast acreages of asphalt parking lot.

The only obvious difference is that the truck stop serves a lot more 18-wheelers than four-wheelers.

Beth Spencer, general manager of the Travel Centers of America truck stop at Jessup, Md., says truckers have tried very hard to change their image, and the same goes for trucks stops. “It’s not a dirty, gross, disgusting place – it’s a legitimate place of business,” she says.

For the full story, see the June 12 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.