I’m an Architecture Student currently looking at Motorway Service Stations and the life of the Trucker, been told this is a good place to get started.
So a couple of questions:
What doesn’t work with current Service stations?
What do Truckers need/want to have at Service Stations?
I’m currently concentrating on Membury Services along the M4, if anyone has anything particular about that area.
Any thoughts, suggestions or photos would be great.
Just to finish I would like to say Truck drivers are a bloody important cog in the UK economy and I think they should be better provided for on the roads.
I’m an Architecture Student currently looking at Motorway Service Stations and the life of the Trucker, been told this is a good place to get started.
So a couple of questions:
What doesn’t work with current Service stations?
What do Truckers need/want to have at Service Stations?
I’m currently concentrating on Membury Services along the M4, if anyone has anything particular about that area.
Any thoughts, suggestions or photos would be great.
Just to finish I would like to say Truck drivers are a bloody important cog in the UK economy and I think they should be better provided for on the roads.
Thanks
Matt
The fact an Architecture Student is studying them says whats wrong with them really.
They’re just a business model , ran by someone who wants to lease out the retail units at max £. To do this they follow retail studies etc, make sure everyone has to pass every retail unit until they hit the bogs so they guarantee the footfall for the potential leasee and thats generally it.
I can’t see it being any help to you to know we only require loads of parking, toilet facilities near the parking without having to walk through a shopping mall, and infact a shopping mall isn’t really a neccesity for us!!!
Most need better showers, most need better customer service as we seem to be looked down on as an inconvenience.
Examples of good ones
Cobham
Beaconsfield(even got a wetherspoons) big food court good hot showers although small.
Woodhall, good variety of food.
There’s some great truck stops to use as models but service stations cater for cars and coaches ££££££ truckers are there as I guess it must be in the plans.
Most drivers will moan we have to walk for 60 seconds to the service area and wonder why so many are fat ■■■■■■■■■
As long as there’s hot showers and a variety of food unlike most with a Burger King and costa coffee you’ll be on the right track.
Layout of parking to avoid vehicles clipping each other
Layout of parking to provide mutual security ie instead of vehicles lining up cab-to-cab, line up cab-to-trailer…this would also be quieter for sleeping drivers when ‘next door’s’ truck starts up and leaves.
Discouraging non LGVs entering LGV parking area
Designated quiet parking area
Designated noisy area for trailer swaps and people who enjoy shouting and revving up at 3 am.
Oh and last of all…pop-up open-air urinals next to each parking bay
I’m an Architecture Student currently looking at Motorway Service Stations and the life of the Trucker, been told this is a good place to get started.
So a couple of questions:
What doesn’t work with current Service stations?
What do Truckers need/want to have at Service Stations?
I’m currently concentrating on Membury Services along the M4, if anyone has anything particular about that area.
Any thoughts, suggestions or photos would be great.
Just to finish I would like to say Truck drivers are a bloody important cog in the UK economy and I think they should be better provided for on the roads.
Thanks
Matt
toilet facilities near the parking without having to walk through a shopping mall, and infact a shopping mall isn’t really a neccesity for us!!!
Why is that? We spend a lot if not most/all of our working day sat on our arse is that small walk really of genuine inconvenience? Although it’s obvious by the smell in any service area or a lot of truck stops it’s just too far ffs. I watched one pull up at Heston today had a ■■■■ then drove off it’s disgusting and downright lazy! Fat welsh turd.
Cut the kid some slack mike this guy could potentially change msa’s. But I do agree the problem is that companies are just too greedy. However, to answer the kids questions
What doesn’t work - lorries have to park far too far away from the building and are treat like a plague meaning that lazy truckers will ■■■■ against a wheel causing a ■■■■■ smell that can get real bad in a hot summer they are over priced for what you get
What do truckers want - cheaper secure rest areas with decent reasonably priced food clean facilities to wash
Bring back good old fashioned truckstops
Ps Matt hope you realise you’ve opened the biggest can if worms on here
ROG contra flow tachograph and anders66 should be along soon to add more expect your inbox to be full my morning
I would like to see the following in service stations
1 ) Separate parking areas for HGV,s and Caravans , i have lost count the amount of times i cannot get into a HGV parking area because it was full of caravans
2 ) Reefer points for C& F vehicles separate from the rest of HGV Parking area
3 ) Toilets at both end of the service areas
4 ) Free WIFI
5 ) Gym facilities
6 ) Propper rest room facilities for HGV drivers where they can relax , watch telly , basically chill out away from cab.
7 ) Finally and by no means the least important a 24 hour sauna and massage facility with discount rates for truckers.
24hr showers of a quality that the owner of said services would use themselves (at a reasonable price ideally free with HGV parking)
Tarmac that’s in a decent state of repair
24 hr decent quality hot food at a reasonable price (not just ■■■■ and chips swimming in grease )
Somewhere to wash up cooking utensils etc (washing up area)
lorry wash (or bloke who washes lorries)
Sense would also say combine a 24hr repair service
A truckers shop (not for frilly curtains but for cb bits bulbs, fuses and the like)
Decent HGV fuel facilities (fast in fast out and long enough fuel hoses for both tanks)
I’d like to see a separate area for those starting their shift in the wee hours of the morning to stop them waking up those of us who’s shift has just finished an hour before
In fact have a decent look at the type of facilities available to HGV drivers in mainland Europe, then charge less and eliminate the French from them and you’re about bang on
Google Brescia Est truckstop in Italy.
Discounted rates for drivers at the hotel.
Car hire centre for time off.
A fully equipped gym.
But for the UK that would mean a 20 year old Portacabin.
In the UK the loos smell like a badgers armpit,the stench is over powering.
Germany,Austria and Switzerland are the Kings of toilet hygeine.
You pay for the loo and get a voucher to spend on food or drink in the cafe.
Their loos are manned by a cleaner.
Some have robotic machines that rotate around the loo seat.
Westmoreland are building a new Msa on the M5 northbound,why worry about worn out Membury and have an input on what drivers need at a brand new site passed Michael Wood Msa.
I’m an Architecture Student currently looking at Motorway Service Stations and the life of the Trucker, been told this is a good place to get started.
The fact an Architecture Student is studying them says whats wrong with them really.
They’re just a business model , ran by someone who wants to lease out the retail units at max £. To do this they follow retail studies etc, make sure everyone has to pass every retail unit until they hit the bogs so they guarantee the footfall for the potential leasee and thats generally it.
I can’t see it being any help to you to know we only require loads of parking, toilet facilities near the parking without having to walk through a shopping mall , and infact a shopping mall isn’t really a neccesity for us!!!
I had a moan at the one of the BODs at Roadchef for doing that at Chester services on the redesign, He said “good isn’t it, I designed that”. But they have their reasons as Mike c States.
Or here sheffieldmotorwayservices.co.uk
for a proposed MSA,
If you want to make changes get in at design stage, more msa are supposedly going green check out the newer places like Wetherby for rainwater harvesting etc, more sites are installing wind generation plants, It may come in handy for reducing costs or increasing profits.
As for seperate areas for truckers that was taken out of policy in the hope that shared facilities would drag standards up rather than truckers slumming it, It may or may not have had the opposite effect
Design the fuel station so we don’t have to rejoin the exit road from the right. The one just north of the A66 on the M6 (forget the name) you have to pull out blind because you can’t see a bloody thing.
There never seems to be enough parking spaces at a lot of the service areas if you’re parking up for the night, even Lymm gets packed out if you get in there too late.
Matt, thanks for your kind thoughts and good luck with the course.
all sorts of things wrong with Motorway service areas (MSAs) which I’m sure others will point out.
It is worth pointing out how many different ways of parking are laid out by MSAs
If you have access to a mathematician at your college, take him and yourself along to a MSA and try to persuade a driver to show you how to park. At its best, it is very difficult.
it would help if the “services” sign on the motorway, the fuel supplier (Shell, BP, agency etc) is displayed. An agency driver who is unfamiliar with the route will have been issued with a fuel card but he does not know if it is valid at the MSA until he drives in.
Service stations are mostly well occupied with HGV’s everynight - so they are getting the ££££ from the parking regardless of the awful facilities most of these places offer for HGV drivers. There is only one thing that will make these places start properly accommodating truck drivers - an even higher parking charge or loss of business to competition.
Competition is ultimately the only thing that will make MSA’s become better & cheaper, business wise they have no reason to consider changing otherwise. I’m not a Euro driver, but the impression I get is that abroad the service stations have to ‘tempt drivers in’ with good facilities & prices because there is ample free parking alternatives they could use elsewhere.
Here’s my thought I always thunk when I enter wetherby services…why isn’t the head of the ■■■ that designed the truck parking,not on a spike next to the pumps■■?
Sorted …
