Truck Stop and Travel Center Feasibility Study

A truck stop feasibility study is an independent report that tells a lender whether a proposed, expanded or acquired travel center can generate the diesel gallons, nonfuel sales and parking income needed to service its debt, and whether the site, the corridor and the competitive set support that projection. MMCG Invest prepares truck stop and travel center feasibility studies for banks, SBA Certified Development Companies, USDA guaranteed lenders and sponsors across the country. Each study is built on classified truck counts, freight corridor analysis, a field survey of every competing fuel stop in the market, site-level fuel margin modeling and a stress-tested debt service coverage schedule, and it is written so that the credit memorandum, the SBA or USDA submission and the appraisal can be drawn directly from it.

Three features set a truck stop apart from ordinary commercial real estate in a lender's file. The first is the collateral. SBA treats fuel retail as limited or special purpose property, and most banks and Certified Development Companies apply that classification to a travel center because the improvements, the canopy, the underground storage tanks and the heavy-duty truck court have little value in any other use. Special purpose status raises the required equity injection under the SBA 504 program, narrows the appraiser pool to those with going-concern experience in the property type and pushes the lender to look past the real estate to the operating cash flow. The second feature is the environmental profile. SBA's loan procedures include a dedicated appendix for gas station loans, and lenders apply it to truck stops and travel centers because they share the same fuel storage risk. A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment, tank and line tightness documentation and an indemnification review are standard regardless of loan size, and any party holding an environmental indemnification right must waive it before the loan is eligible. The third feature is the revenue structure. Fuel generates most of the sales but a minority of the profit. At TravelCenters of America, the last national travel center chain to file public financials before bp acquired it in May 2023, fuel gross margin averaged roughly 25 cents per gallon in 2022, up from about 17 cents in 2021, while nonfuel sales produced close to 70 percent of total gross margin at a 60.4 percent nonfuel margin. Site-level operating expenses at that chain ran at 49.8 percent of nonfuel revenue. A travel center that cannot defend its store, foodservice, truck service, diesel exhaust fluid and parking revenue cannot be underwritten on fuel alone, and the feasibility study has to prove each of those lines independently.

Demand for a travel center begins with the trucks that pass the site and the rules that determine where they must stop. MMCG pulls the state DOT classified count nearest the interchange and separates single-unit trucks (FHWA classes 5 to 7) from single-trailer and multi-trailer combinations (classes 8 to 13), because the class 9 tractor-semitrailer is the core customer and its diesel purchase, parking need and service demand differ from every other vehicle on the road. On rural interstates, combination trucks accounted for 21.8 percent of vehicle miles traveled in 2024 and all trucks for 26.4 percent, and federal freight forecasts project tonnage growth of roughly 46 percent between 2017 and 2050. Federal hours-of-service rules limit a property-carrying driver to 11 hours of driving within a 14-hour window, with a 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours of driving. Those limits fix the distance a truck can travel from the morning's freight origin before it must stop, and the study maps the ports, intermodal yards, distribution hubs and metropolitan freight origins within one driving day of the site to establish where the subject sits in the day. Capture rates are then applied to the classified count by direction, by time of day and by trip purpose, with through traffic, regional distribution traffic and local traffic modeled separately.

Every competing fuel stop within the trade area is surveyed in the field and checked against the operator's own published data: brand, interchange, diesel lanes, truck parking spaces, reserved and paid spaces, showers, service bays, scale, foodservice and loyalty program. Chain supply dominates the interstate system. Pilot operates 675 travel centers and 82 fuel-only locations, Love's operates 676 locations in 42 states, and TA operates more than 280 sites under bp, and fleets route to those networks by contract and by loyalty program. The study identifies the nearest chain node in each direction, the spacing between nodes and the amenity gaps a new entrant can fill. Truck parking is treated as a demand driver in its own right. The most recent national inventory counted 308,920 truck parking spaces, 88 percent of them at private truck stops, roughly one space for every 11 drivers. Members of the national truck stop association operate more than 5,000 travel plazas and truck stops and provide more than 90 percent of the nation's truck parking. 98 percent of drivers report difficulty finding parking, and the average driver spends 56 minutes a day searching for it. Where the subject adds parking capacity on a corridor with a documented shortage, the study quantifies the shortage and the fuel and inside sales that parking draws to the site.

Diesel gallons are projected from the captured truck count, average fill, fleet fuel card penetration and the pricing position of the subject against the chain nodes on either side. Margin is modeled in cents per gallon, not as a percentage of pump price, because retail diesel margin behaves as a spread that widens when wholesale prices fall and compresses when they rise. The 2026 fuel market illustrates why that matters. U.S. on-highway diesel reached $6.529 per gallon in the week of September 21, 2026 and stood at $6.382 the following week, against a 2025 annual average of $3.660. In May 2026 the federal Energy Information Administration attributed 23 percent of the $5.60 retail diesel price to distribution and marketing, a gross figure that captures freight, retail operating cost and margin together, which is why MMCG builds fuel margin from site-level cents per gallon and stress tests it across a range that runs from the mid-teens to the high twenties. Credit card fees are indexed to pump price rather than fixed, because a percentage-based interchange fee adds several cents per gallon of cost at today's prices compared with last year. Gasoline is modeled separately with its own capture, fill and margin assumptions.

The convenience store, foodservice, truck service and repair, tire sales, diesel exhaust fluid, showers, scales, laundry, reserved parking and any truck wash or car wash are each projected from the captured traffic, the operator's program and the market's benchmarks. In one recent public quarter at TravelCenters of America, truck service alone was the largest nonfuel category, ahead of the store and the restaurant, and diesel exhaust fluid revenue was growing faster than every other line as newer trucks entered the fleet. Convenience store benchmarks from the national industry survey for 2025 put foodservice at 28.5 percent of inside sales and 38.9 percent of inside gross profit, and they also show that the typical store's inside basket lost money after expenses in 2025, so the study does not assume that inside sales growth will cover debt service. Reserved and paid truck parking is modeled at observed market rates and at paid occupancy well below the near-full occupancy that free lots run at. Where the operator proposes video gaming terminals, the gaming revenue is modeled on the state's published per-terminal performance, and debt service coverage is shown both with and without it.

For new construction and expansion the study reviews the development budget line by line against current cost data for the building, the diesel and auto canopies, dispensers, the underground storage tank system with secondary containment and interstitial monitoring under the 2015 federal UST rule, heavy-duty paving for the truck court, lighting, stormwater, utilities and site work. Public truck parking projects reported by state departments of transportation in 2025 averaged $113,395 per space, and the study explains why a private operator adding stalls to an existing paved site builds them for a fraction of that figure. Environmental due diligence is framed to the lender's requirements: a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment under ASTM E1527-21, tank and line tightness testing, a Phase II where the environmental professional recommends one, pollution liability coverage or state fund evidence, construction stormwater permit coverage for any site disturbing more than one acre, and the fuel supply, brand and jobber agreements that SBA reviews as franchise-type agreements.

Projections run from opening through at least two years of stabilized operations, with a pro forma balance sheet at closing, and are stated as findings with every assumption listed. Debt service coverage is calculated on the proposed structure and tested against the lender's floor and the program's requirements: 1.15 times for a standard SBA 7(a) loan, 1.25 times on historical earnings for an SBA change-of-ownership loan under SOP 50 10 8.1, and the global historical and projected coverage analysis that USDA requires. Sensitivity tables move diesel gallons, cents per gallon margin, inside sales, parking occupancy and construction cost independently and together, and the breakeven gallon count is stated so that the lender can see how far demand must fall before coverage is lost.

The method is set out in full in MMCG's feasibility study methodology.

SBA regulations state that a lender may require a feasibility study. For a truck stop, the requirement is usually driven by three overlapping factors: special purpose collateral, start-up or new construction status, and the environmental profile of fuel storage. Under the SBA 504 program a borrower must contribute at least 10 percent of project cost, rising to 15 percent for a new business or for limited or special purpose property and 20 percent where both apply. The 504 debenture is capped at $5,000,000 for most projects, the 7(a) loan at $5,000,000, and a combined 7(a) and 504 structure can reach $10,000,000 in total SBA exposure. Under SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, effective October 1, 2026, most business acquisitions must show 1.25 times debt service coverage on historical earnings, purchases of $3,000,000 or more generally require a lender-ordered Quality of Earnings report, with exceptions that can apply to owner-occupied special purpose property, and the buyer must inject at least 10 percent equity. SBA's loan procedures include a dedicated appendix for gas station loans, so a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment, tank testing documentation and an indemnification review apply regardless of loan size, and the fuel supply, distributor, dealer or jobber agreement is reviewed as a franchise agreement with its assignment, minimum volume and termination terms examined. The loss record favors the program structure over the industry label. Seasoned SBA 7(a) loans across all industries charge off at 6.44 percent against 1.49 percent for 504 loans, and gas station 7(a) loans have lost about 3.5 percent of dollars approved over the life of the program even though roughly 15 percent of resolved loans ended in charge-off, because the real estate recovers well. MMCG structures each study so that the lender's credit evaluation and the SBA submission can be written from it, and our SBA feasibility study page describes the program requirements in full.

Truck stops and travel centers are eligible commercial enterprises under the USDA Business and Industry guaranteed loan program, which reaches $25,000,000 per borrower with terms of up to 40 years, 85 percent guarantees on loans under $5,000,000 and 80 percent on loans from $5,000,000 to $25,000,000 in fiscal year 2026. An independent feasibility study is required for guaranteed loans greater than $1,000,000 to a new business, the site must sit outside a city or town of more than 50,000 and its adjacent urbanized area, and a borrower is ineligible if more than 15 percent of its annual gross revenue, including lease income from space or machines, comes from gambling. Interchange parcels that map inside a Census urban area are not automatically excluded, and video gaming terminals do not automatically disqualify a fuel-led site, but both questions have to be answered parcel by parcel and projection year by projection year. Our USDA travel center feasibility study page covers rural eligibility, the gaming test by state, tribal borrowers and the pairing of B&I with REAP energy financing in detail, and our USDA feasibility study page covers the program framework.

A 25-year real estate term asks the lender to look past the current diesel market. Electric Class 8 charging is arriving at travel centers, but in 2026 it remains at pilot scale along a limited number of corridors. Pilot's January 2026 program with Tesla covers Semi charging sites in five states with four to eight stalls each, the bp pulse heavy-duty hub at Ontario, California is a state-funded pilot, and the federal corridor charging program has spent most of 2025 and 2026 in litigation and appropriation disputes. Renewable diesel, by contrast, is a drop-in fuel that flows through the same tanks and dispensers, and U.S. production capacity passed 5 billion gallons a year in 2025. MMCG treats heavy-duty electrification as a downside sensitivity and a site planning question, covering electrical service capacity, transformer siting and parking acreage that can be converted to charging, rather than as a base-case reduction in diesel demand.

MMCG truck stop and travel center feasibility studies typically range from $7,500 to $16,000 on a fixed fee, depending on the loan program, whether the project is a new build, an expansion or an acquisition, the number of revenue streams and the scope the lender requires. A single-brand acquisition with historical operating statements sits at the lower end. A full-service new build with truck service, a restaurant, a truck wash and video gaming, or a project that must satisfy both an SBA lender and a USDA State Office, sits at the higher end. Every engagement receives a fixed-fee proposal. Payment terms are 50 percent at engagement and 50 percent on delivery. Standard delivery is 9 to 16 business days, with rush turnaround available from 5 days. Every MMCG study carries a contractual acceptance commitment: revisions required by the lender, the Certified Development Company or USDA are made at no additional cost.

Fuel retail without a truck program is covered on our gas station feasibility study page, which shares the environmental and fuel supply framework described above. Truck washes and car washes attached to a travel center are covered on our car wash feasibility study page. Distribution corridors, truck terminals and the logistics facilities that generate freight demand are covered on our industrial feasibility study page. Rural projects financed with USDA guarantees are covered on our USDA travel center feasibility study page and our USDA feasibility study page, and SBA program requirements are covered on our SBA feasibility study page.

MMCG Invest is a national commercial real estate feasibility consultancy serving lenders, SBA Certified Development Companies, USDA guaranteed lenders and borrowers across all 50 states. Between January 1 and September 1, 2026, MMCG feasibility studies supported $2.3 billion of total construction cost and $1.7 billion of loan amount across more than 30 asset classes. Our conclusions reflect the data, not the desired outcome, and a project that cannot be supported is reported as not feasible as proposed, with the redesign that would make it work. Our travel center studies are built on classified truck counts, freight corridor data, a field survey of every competitor, chain operator disclosures and national convenience store and fuel benchmarks, supplemented by MMCG Analytics, the national parcel, building and market data estate MMCG Invest built and operates. We publish the free national hazard screening tools and the USDA eligibility map that lenders and borrowers use to check a site before engaging.

Engagement runs in four steps. First, a scoping call with the principal to confirm the loan program, the project (new build, expansion or acquisition), the site, the fuel program and the lender's requirements. Second, a response within 12 business hours and a fixed-fee proposal with the engagement letter and a document request list covering the site plan, the development budget or purchase agreement, historical fuel and inside sales where they exist, the fuel supply or brand agreement and any environmental reports. Third, research, field survey, traffic analysis and modeling, with a draft issued to the client and the lender for factual review. Fourth, delivery of the final study with the preparer's qualification statement and independence disclosure, followed by revisions required by the lender, the CDC or USDA at no additional cost.

Michal Mohelsky, J.D. | Principal | MMCG Invest, LLC Contact: michal@mmcginvest.com Phone: (628) 225-1110

Michal Mohelsky, J.D., is the founder and principal of MMCG Invest, LLC. He has led feasibility studies supporting $2.3 billion of total construction cost and $1.7 billion of loan amount between January 1 and September 1, 2026 across more than 30 commercial real estate asset classes for national lenders, SBA Certified Development Companies, USDA guaranteed lenders and federal agencies. He holds a J.D. from Charles University Faculty of Law and is FMVA certified.

Engagements are led by Michal Mohelsky, J.D., Practicing Affiliate of the Appraisal Institute. Feasibility studies are prepared under USPAP discipline, aligned with SBA SOP 50 10 8.1 for 7(a) and 504 loans and with 7 CFR Part 5001, Appendix A to Subpart D, for USDA Business and Industry financing. Engagements start at $4,900 with fixed-fee scoping. Standard delivery is 9 to 16 business days, with rush turnaround available from 5 days. A senior analyst responds to proposal requests within 12 business hours from the firm's San Francisco office at 27 Maiden Lane, Suite 625.