A new study by an Alabama financial services company found the highest rated truck stops and rest areas are in Vermont. The lowest rated are in New Jersey.
altLINE, which bills itself as "The Southern Bank Company", said it "collected and analyzed reviews from Google Maps from almost 100,000 truck stops and rest stops across the U.S. and mapped the good and the bad."
Based on that data, Vermont tops altLINE's list for rest stop quality, being the only state to receive 4.5-star average rating. Hawaii came in second, while Iowa, Alaska, and New Hampshire round out the top five.
altLINE said at the bottom of the list is New Jersey, which averaged 3.86 in its rest stop reviews. Colorado and Massachusetts came in only marginally better, both achieving average ratings under 4.0, according to altLINE.
Massachusetts topped the study's list for places where truck stop and rest area patrons received "service with a smile." On the other hand, Delaware and Florida were at the bottom of that list.
altLINE's review also found:
the region around In and around Waynesville, North Carolina had a cluster of consistently well-rated stops
along Interstate 80, the Salt Flats Rest Area, Located in Utah, stands out with a 4.6 average rating from over 2,000 reviews
along I-10, the highest-rated stop is the Official Florida Welcome Center, with a 4.7 rating from nearly 8,000 reviews
along I-95, the Georgia Welcome Center takes the top spot with a 4.6 average from more than 8,400 reviews
a review of customer ratings of the four major truck stop chains found Petro the best with a 3.88 rating
TravelCenters of America was the lowest-rated of the big four chains with a rating of 3.66
Here's how altLINE said it arrived at its results. Between June 12 and July 5 it used Google Maps to search every U.S. ZIP code for “Truck Stops” and “Rest Stops,” collecting up to 500 business listings per search.
From these results, it filtered out any unrelated data, keeping only listings labeled by Google as one of the following types of establishments: “Rest Stop,” “Truck Stop,” “Toll Road Rest Stop,” “Gas Station,” or “Diner.”
From each location, altLINE gathered up to 20 recent reviews and scanned them for words related to customer service: “staff,” “employee,” “employees,” “worker,” “workers,” “clerk,” “cashier,” “friendly,” “unfriendly,” “rude,” “helpful,” “polite,” “service,” “customer service,” “attendant,” or “manager.” Reviews containing at least one of these terms were flagged as service-related and used in our customer service comparison.
altLIND said, "Finally, like with any platform-based data, there are limitations. Truck stops or rest stops that were mislabeled, misnamed, or improperly categorized by Google may have been excluded."
