25 August 2011: VisitEngland, today announces the results of a new star rating scheme for motorway service areas (MSAs) around the country, revealing 86% to be three star and above.

As the national tourist board, Visit England is committed to ensure that the highest possible level of standards is available to the many millions of tourists travelling the length and breadth of England.  Attractions and accommodation are of course the focus for the national drive for quality. Motorway service areas are, however, a key part of the journey many visitors to England make to reach their end destination, and as such contribute significantly to the visitor experience.  It is important, therefore, that the welcome visitors receive, and the quality of services on offer at these key focal points adds to, and does not detract from the visitor’s overall holiday experience.

Working with the Highways Agency and the five main operators of motorway service areas  – Moto, Welcome Break, Roadchef, Extra and Westmorland -  VisitEngland conducted four waves of assessments and awarded the 71 participating MSAs with their appropriate star rating.

Using consumer research, criteria were set that would assess areas that consumers had indicated as important to them when using MSAs.  Areas of particular importance highlighted in the research and included within the assessment process are:  the range of food on offer and its overall presentation; the cleanliness, both overall and in particular the toilets; service and general attitude of staff and the types of products sold in the retail outlets.

THE TOP PERFORMING AREAS

James Berresford VisitEngland’s Chief Executive commented:

“Motorway service areas form an important part of the journey many visitors to England take to reach their end destination and as such contribute to the visitor economy of this country.  It is important, therefore, that the welcome visitors receive, and the quality of services on offer at motorway service areas adds to the visitor’s overall holiday experience.”

Roads Minister, Mike Penning said:

“I fully support the introduction of the Quality Award Scheme. An independent and voluntary star rating scheme that informs road users of the quality of service at roadside facilities will improve choice for all road users, and will encourage drivers to take frequent breaks on long journeys.

“Motorway service areas help to keep drivers and passengers safe by providing a place to rest and refuel so I want to make sure they provide the best possible service. That is why I am investigating how we can reduce regulation, increase competition and improve the quality of service areas.”

The team of independent assessors will visit each of the motorway service areas annually.  Each site will receive three full visits and three face to face de-briefs with the onsite management team.

The Sunday People printed an article about the “Ten Worst Motorway Services” last weekend, which was picked up be several other media outlets and led to me being interviewed on a couple of BBC local radio stations, Kent and Surrey. BBC Radio Kent had done an interesting vox pop as part of the feature where they spoke to people at a local MSA (not sure which one, but I suspect Maidstone) and asked them what their main complaints were. Unsurprisingly, I supppose (but worth noting, given that their audience is probably somewhat different to that of the website), their complaints were much the same as those here – prices and cleanliness.

The next day, BBC Radio Surrey asked me what I thought the main complaints were and what the operators could do about it. My response, in the nutshell soundbite allowed for on radio, was cleanliness and parking. Coming back to the website admin system to check for new comments, I was reminded again that Moto seemingly have made it the job of one of their staff to check for parking complaints here and continually tell people about the appeals procedure. It’s certainly an issue which generates a lot of traffic in the comment system.

So, what do I think the operators ought to do to improve their reputation? I think that most MSA users, while they grumble about the prices, are generally willing to accept that it’s the price (literally) that they pay for the convenience of just being able to pull off the motorway and stop rather than having to leave the motorway and hunt for somewhere that’s both open and offering what they want. What they don’t accept, though, is being treated unreasonably when they actually do use an MSA. So this is my open letter to the MSA operators, based on my own experience of service areas and the comments on this website, with my suggestions about how to improve things.

Firstly, cleanliness. Yes, I know that a lot of your customers are their own worst enemies in this respect. I’ve been at an MSA and watched a family finish their burgers in the outside seating area and then just drop the wrappers on the floor rather than walk 30 yards to a bin. I’ve seen brain-dead smokers drop smouldering cigarette butts on the path just outside the door. So you have my sympathy. A lot of your customers are antisocial at best and positively malevolent at worst. But not all of them. Not even most of them. And by letting the antisocial ones spoil it for the rest, you’re colluding in it. By not clearing up litter, the message you give is “dropping litter doesn’t matter”.

The same applies to the toilets. Yes, keeping them clean is hard, especially when they’re abused. But, again, by letting them deteriorate you’re encouraging people not to care by giving the impression that you don’t care either.

Secondly, parking. I think most people would accept that it’s fair to pay for parking beyond the standard free period. But don’t make it a rip-off. Don’t make people pay for 24 hours if they’re only going to be there for three or four. Let people pay for exactly what they’ve used. If someone comes in for a break and stays for two hours thirty minutes instead of two hours, then let them pay for the thirty extra minutes before they leave.

Make it easy to pay. Have machines in the car parks (yes, in the car parks – not some obscure location inside the building) that people can put real money, or credit cards, into. Payment by phone is fine for geeks and gadget addicts, but most of your customers don’t fall into that category. In any case, a lot of people (including myself) who are geeks and/or gadget addicts are reluctant to give away our mobile phone numbers to an organisation we don’t know and trust.

Stop using ineffective ANPR systems to monitor parking – probably the biggest source of complaints about these is that they fail to distinguish between multiple visits in one day. Saying that people can appeal isn’t the answer – the answer is to fix the problem which is generating spurious charges!

My suggestion would be to install barriers on the car parks and use the pay-on-exit system similar to many municipal car parks. If people leave before the two hour free period is up, they get charged nothing. If they leave later than that, they pay for exactly what they’ve used. No arguments, no spurious charges, no excess penalties for a relatively short overstay. If that’s not practical, then use the old-fashioned method of dispensing tickets from a machine and having them checked by parking attendants. Either way, requiring people to jump through hoops to pay and then penalising them over the odds when they don’t is simply unacceptable.

Any chance of these suggestions being taken on board? It would be nice to think so. Maybe some of the newer and smaller operators could have a go at shaming the big three by adopting a more user-friendly approach. Or maybe it will take a mass revolt by customers to force a change. If you get a parking ticket, then appeal. Always appeal. Bog down the appeals process in so many complaints that it becomes obvious the system needs to change. After all, Heather and Gareth need to have something to show for their efforts here in pointing people towards it.

There’s a good article in today’s Observer magazine in which comedian Alex Horne talks about his “secret love affair” with motorway services. Motorwayservices.info gets a mention, as do some of our contributors.

The Highways Agency has just published a report into the provision of motorway service facilities in the UK, and it’s worth reading if you’ve got a bit of time to spare. I was, however, much amused by these paragraphs in the National Report PDF:

There is no official database of MSAs available therefore it was necessary to perform a desktop study in order to identify the locations of such sites on the Motorway Network.

The desktop study used online aerial mapping sources to identify the locations of service areas on the Motorway Network. The information was then cross-referenced with conventional mapping to establish the names of the MSAs. Thus a comprehensive list of MSAs in England has been produced. As an additional check, information was cross-referenced with unofficial internet based guides to MSAs – motorwayservices.info and motorwayservicesonline.co.uk.

It’s nice to know that we’re providing a useful service to the Highways Agency!

As mentioned in the previous blog post, Watford Gap services is 50 years old today. Opened on the same day as the M1 itself, it’s the first and oldest MSA in the UK. (more…)

…is, according to The Times, Motorway Service Stations.

You pop in to go to the toilet and five minutes later you’ve bought a full-English breakfast for £18.99 and joined the AA.

I have no idea what relevence this is to football, unless it’s a sideways look at the life of a supporter. I suppose if you travel to a lot of away games, you’re going to see the inside of plenty of MSAs in the course of a season.

Browsing the BBC news website during my lunch break, I came across this amusing tale of a course designed to increase our appreciation of motorways and motorway service stations. As the introduction to the piece puts it:

 

There’s more to motorways than tarmac, tailbacks and tepid coffee served at tourist prices. To prove it a lecturer took a minibus of students on a day-long tour of the M1.

 

Many people suppress feelings of mild dread at the idea of spending any time at all on the motorway. Few struggle with secret yearnings for the over-lit service stations areas that dot their routes.

This is all the brainchild of Peter Lawrence who, apparently, has a PhD in motorway services. Much as I approve of his dedication (and wonder why he’s never contributed to motorwayservices.info), I can’t help thinking that there can’t be that much original research you can do about MSAs. I’d love to read a copy of his thesis.

The Times today carries an obituary of John Greenwood, the former chief executive of RoadChef. According to the obit,

John Greenwood was a captain of the food service industry who as chief executive of the RoadChef chain of motorway service stations from 2001 to 2004 made sure that a decent cup of coffee was finally available to British motorists.

I know that it’s a general rule in obituaries not to speak ill of the dead, and I’m sure that John Greenwood was a very competent chief executive. But it’s rather stretching a point to give the impression that he alone, or even that RoadChef, finally gave MSA customers what they want. A quick glance through the comments here will dispel that idea!

The obit goes on to say this about Norton Canes:

Resembling a Scandinavian airport lounge rather than a traditional roadside greasy spoon, the £15 million complex boasted sleek furnishings, food cooked to order and, most importantly, clean, modern washrooms and lavatories. It set the benchmark for the industry.

Again, this looks like hyperbole to me. I’ve used Norton Canes and, while it’s certainly better than most, it’s not outstandingly so. And it’s nothing particularly special, in terms of design – it’s pretty much the same as all of the newer generation of MSAs. And “food cooked to order” was actually a feature of most of the earliest MSAs – until the operators realised that most customers wanted simply wanted fast food instead. Plus ca change.

Today’s Sunday Express carries a story about the proposed “star rating” scheme for motorway services, and it includes three quotes from our reader comments. Unfortunately, I can’t find the story online at their website, so I can’t link to it, but I think it reports the situation pretty well.

According to a recent BBC news report, motorway service areas could soon get official “star ratings” similar to those used for hotels, etc:

Motorway service stations in England could be given hotel-style star ratings in an effort to improve quality, the government has said.

The “quality scheme” would look at factors including food and drink, toilets and general cleanliness.

Apart from the fact that this seems a clear rip-off of our own burger ratings, it seems like a reasonable idea. The real question is whether or not the ratings scheme will take account of what people really want in an MSA, rather than what the Highways Agency thinks they ought to want.

There’s more information on the proposals in the Highways Agency press release, and the full text of the report is also available as a PDF download.