A study of impact and effectiveness of the construction of the highway service areas in Texas

The United States is a country on wheels, which connects various centers such as economic, political, cultural, community, and commercial ones by highway. The total mileage of American's traveling on the highway every year is up to 4 trillion kilometer, more than 91% of which is from private car. With no doubt, there is a huge commercial opportunity in this industry. Service area plays a very important role in ensuring traffic safety, improving the economic benefits of highway and landscaping as an essential equipment of highway and a major service method. Based on the above, how to enhance service area's effectiveness matters a lot in highway development, even the entire transporting system.;This thesis focuses on the site selection, function configuration, parking lots design, and barrier-free and ecological design principles of rest area in Texas. Through comparative study and analysis, some suggestions were addressed herein for reference.