The landscape of Britain’s motorway services has changed significantly since the first were opened alongside the early motorways of the 1950s and 1960s. Back in the day, they were owned by the government who leased sites out to private operators by tender (a bit like the rail franchising system), with sites won by a range of competing operators including the likes of Blue Boar, Top Rank, Trusthouse Forte, Granada, Motoross and Taverna. The focus back then was on fine dining, since it was expected that most of the clientele would be middle or upper class who were more likely to afford a car, but they didn’t materialise as much as anticipated and many sites gradually switched to takeaway-style food from big brands.
Nowadays, we have a “big three” of operators, Moto, Welcome Break and Roadchef who fully own the sites and are free to develop proposals for new MSAs at their will (the system was privatised in 1992). Their offerings are pretty mediocre from a general point of view, although there are smaller operators such as Westmorland, Extra and Euro Garages who tend to fare a bit better. On the whole however, motorway services aren’t incentivised to provide a high quality service, but that may not be necessarily a bad thing in the context of a motorway service area, since they should not be destinations in their own right. Any MSA that happened to get good reviews might find an influx of locals using the motorway just to access it, thus causing congestion problems and taking parking away from those long-distance travellers who may need it.
So in general, what are your thoughts on motorway service areas? Do you think they were better in the past or present? Do you think they still serve a purpose bearing in mind that there are so many alternatives these days not far from a motorway junction. Will the onset of electric vehicles likely change the footprint of MSAs?
Nowadays, we have a “big three” of operators, Moto, Welcome Break and Roadchef who fully own the sites and are free to develop proposals for new MSAs at their will (the system was privatised in 1992). Their offerings are pretty mediocre from a general point of view, although there are smaller operators such as Westmorland, Extra and Euro Garages who tend to fare a bit better. On the whole however, motorway services aren’t incentivised to provide a high quality service, but that may not be necessarily a bad thing in the context of a motorway service area, since they should not be destinations in their own right. Any MSA that happened to get good reviews might find an influx of locals using the motorway just to access it, thus causing congestion problems and taking parking away from those long-distance travellers who may need it.
So in general, what are your thoughts on motorway service areas? Do you think they were better in the past or present? Do you think they still serve a purpose bearing in mind that there are so many alternatives these days not far from a motorway junction. Will the onset of electric vehicles likely change the footprint of MSAs?
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