As Minnesotans rely more and more on deliveries, the state faces a shortage of commercial drivers.

The Commercial Driver Workforce Study group held its last officially scheduled meeting Thursday as they finalize a report with recommendations for the Legislature on how to address the issue.

“We already know there is a wave of retirements on the horizon,” said Laura Roads, the director of the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s commercial vehicle operations section.

Roads and Department of Public Safety Driver Services Program Director Jody-Kay Peterson has been leading the group since it began meeting in July, as required by the Legislature.

They have been working to get feedback from drivers themselves and last month released a survey, which 115 people responded to. It highlighted it’s a male dominated field and skews older compared to other industries.

It also illustrated the challenges drivers face.

“From the driver survey, the two kind of main concerns people raised were the lifestyle, work life balance and then also just driver stress,” said Roads.

In the eight draft recommendations developed, the study group calls for increasing access to truck parking and rest areas.

“If drivers know they have safe places to park to get good night’s sleep, if they have places where they can go use restrooms and freshen up for the rest of their drive, that might help,” said Roads.

Other recommendations include funding more CDL test examiners, increasing access to test appointments and locations, and exploring expansion of third-party testing.

“Just to give a CDL road test, it takes two hours and you’re only working for eight hours, so do the math,” said Peterson, who explained additional third-party testing could increase capacity. “Let’s look at putting that out to third-party areas so this way you can have more testing appointments and availability.”

According to Peterson, appointments can currently be made 30 days ahead of time.

The group is now finalizing the report, which must be submitted to the Legislature by Feb. 15.

“It’ll ultimately be up to them,” said Roads.