Professional Drivers

The coach park at Oxford.

This page attempts to give some general information aimed at drivers of Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) and coaches who use motorway services. It is only intended to be a brief overview and for answers to specific queries you should ask the operator.

Coach Drivers

Coaches are valuable to service areas as they bring a large amount of custom, but this custom can lead to sudden surges which the services struggle to handle. This also means that the services only benefit when there are many passengers present, so to prevent people using the discounts in other circumstances strict and frequently-changing rules often apply to them.

The different schemes are listed and compared below. To find out which service area is owned by which operator, use the Services Search. These discounts are for vehicles carrying passengers only. You should check with each operator before relying on this list.

Most motorway service areas have dedicated coach parks. A-road services are more of a mixed bag, and coaches are often expected to park with HGVs - if HGV parking is available. Complaints about unauthorised vehicles blocking the coach park should be directed to the operator.

Operator	Full details	How to apply	Restaurant Discount	Retail Discount	Prize Draw?	Other Benefits
Moto	Website	No club - approach staff in WHSmith	1p food voucher	£2 retail voucher when arriving with 25 passengers or more	No	Special offers advertised online
Welcome Break	Website	No club - approach staff in WHSmith	£10 meal voucher (Burger King, Starbucks, Harry Ramsden's, Pret a Manger, Chopstix) or a £6 Waitrose voucher, purchasable for 1p	£1-£5 Love2Shop voucher issued when arriving with 25 passengers or more	No
Roadchef	Website	Apply online.	6-19 passengers = £5; 20+ passengers = £10. Meal voucher can be used then or another day	Vouchers can be converted to WHSmith, Spar, Days Inn or Love2Shop vouchers	No	Special offers are sometimes advertised on Twitter
Extra	Website	No club - approach staff	Meal voucher issued when arriving with 20 passengers or more		No	Access to Cobham toilet drop
Westmorland	Website	Mailing list	none	none	No	Used to keep members informed on specific offers and news

Lorry Drivers

Shell at Telford.

Although lorry drivers don't bring any custom with them, they are regular users of motorway services and as a result the operators are keen to have them use as many facilities as possible. Most services these days now provide showers (the quality of which does vary), and allow you to open up an account for parking on request.

• Moto operate a 'food for fuel' scheme where 100 litres of fuel gives a 50p voucher which is redeemable in Arlo's, Costa and EDC. They also operate truckstops at Barton Park and Lymm.

As of 2008, dedicated motorway truckstops are now permitted, but as of 2019 none have been proposed. Several new truckstops have opened near A-roads in recent years.

Unfortunately, there is a history of HGV drivers causing more trouble than any other class of vehicle at service areas. Many services have introduced a no-tolerance policy for HGVs parking in the wrong place, even if it was a mistake, and will clamp on sight. This can be difficult because many sections of the motorway network have a severe shortage of HGV parking, something Highways England have acknowledge but done little about.

There have also been reports of some drivers behaving irresponsibly, which little can be done about, but it does weaken the case for improving facilities for HGV drivers. Improvements start at the centre.

Why is lorry parking so badly managed?

HGVs are often forced to park in unsuitable places.

The UK has a chronic shortage of safe places for HGVs to park so their drivers can take a break. There are several reasons for this.

Since 1991, service stations (on motorways and A-roads) have been entirely privately operated. This means that their priority as a business is to crave a profit.

Unfortunately, HGV parking is not very profitable. It takes up a lot of space, it is expensive to build, and each vehicle only has one occupant, so is only going to buy one meal at most. In addition, motorway services are forced to prioritise their parking for short stays - the ones who don't pay to park. As a result, if a service station has some land to use, it would rather use it for car drivers where it is much easier to make a profit. While there are some dedicated truckstops which do a good trade, they are not as profitable as major service areas.

This problem only arises when governments have failed to manage the industry properly. Even prior to 1991, when motorway service areas were closely monitored by the government, the earliest motorway service areas were built far too small, as the government was scared of becoming responsible for a white elephant. As a result, our oldest and busiest motorways are full of services that were only designed to handle a couple of lorries at a time. Once this problem became clear, it couldn't be rectified because the planning system at the time made it too difficult.

More recently, the number of HGVs taking breaks in dangerous places (including old-fashioned lay-bys) has presented a major safety, and in some cases environmental, issue. Closing dangerous lay-bys addresses this but at same time puts more pressure on other makeshift parking places.

Further Reading

• Transport Cafe - a website providing details on smaller facilities aimed at HGV drivers