Five things decide it
In order of how often they rule a site out.
1. Can a 53-foot trailer actually get in?
This is the one that surprises people, and it fails more sites than anything except zoning.
A tractor with a 53-foot trailer is around 70 to 75 feet long overall and needs a great deal more room to turn than its length suggests. A driveway a delivery van uses comfortably may be unusable.
Check, in this order:
- The entrance off the public road. Is the turn in wide enough that a combination can make it without mounting a kerb, a verge, or the opposite lane?
- What is opposite your entrance. A truck turning into a narrow gate needs to swing wide, and it cannot if there is a ditch, a pole or parked cars across the road.
- Overhead. Power lines, tree limbs, a gateway arch, a bridge on the approach. 13 feet 6 inches is the standard trailer height; anything lower on the route in is a hard stop.
- Whether a driver can turn around inside, or has to reverse out onto the road. Having to reverse out is a serious drawback and some drivers will simply not book it.
If you take one measurement before reading further, take the width of your entrance.
2. Where is it, relative to freight?
Trucks come off a route. The question is not "is this near a town" but "is this near a corridor, a port, an intermodal yard or a distribution cluster".
Know the answer precisely: which interstate, which exit, and how many miles from it. A driver decides on that one sentence, and it is the first thing we will ask you for when you list. "Two miles from I-880 exit 31" sells; "near Oakland" does not.
3. Will the ground carry a loaded trailer?
A loaded tractor-trailer can reach 80,000 pounds. Ground that is fine for cars can rut, sink or turn to mud under it.
- Gravel is widely acceptable if it is deep enough and properly compacted — it does not have to be asphalt.
- Drainage matters more than surface. A lot that holds water will be unusable in winter and will destroy its own surface.
- A slope is a problem. Trucks need reasonably level ground to park safely, and a noticeable grade makes coupling and uncoupling trailers dangerous.
4. Is it secure, and can people get in when they need to?
Drivers are storing an extremely valuable asset somewhere they will not be.
- A fence and a gate are close to the minimum anyone expects.
- Lighting matters for bookings and for your own liability.
- Cameras raise what you can charge more reliably than almost anything else.
- Access hours are a product decision. A yard that only opens 9 to 5 is much less useful than one a driver can reach at 2am — and you do not need staff for that. Ours releases the gate code in the app on arrival, which is also how the arrival gets recorded.
5. How big is it, really?
Usable area, not total area. Roughly 15 to 20 tractor-trailer spaces fit on an acre once drive aisles are allowed for — the arithmetic is in how much can you earn.
Small is fine. Even a handful of spaces is a real listing, and a half-acre corner of a yard you already own is a perfectly good place to start. You do not need a truck stop.
If most of this checks out
The order that saves the most money is: permission first (do you need permission?), then what setting it up costs, then list it.
You can list a yard here with no card and no commission, and the listing form asks for exactly the measurements above.