Service Area Of The Future…

What is ‘the future’ for MSAs and what does it look like?

We’ve been working with University of Bristol to see what tomorrow’s innovators think the challenges will be in 30 years’ time and what Roadchef can put in place to overcome these.

By working with the University of Bristol, we have been asking its first year Design Futures students to come up with concepts, visually engaging designs and a framework for the ‘Service Area of the Future’ as part of their module for the 2022/2023 academic year. The two main challenges we really wanted them to think about were sustainability and electric vehicles – but also, how we can enhance customer experience to make it more enjoyable, relaxing and convenient.

We visited the university back in March to brief the students on the project and give them background on Roadchef, delving into what our net zero targets are and how we plan to achieve those. Six weeks later, our CEO Mark Fox, Property Development Director Roisin Morris and representatives from Planet Mark were in the hot seat as the students presented their ideas with a quick-fire round of questions at the end of each session.

The students truly challenged the current motorway service area model and came up with ideas that encourages Roadchef to rethink the way it designs future sites – addressing sustainability and environmental issues to provide solutions like underground parking, kinetic charging and living roofs.

The team were so impressed, we’re taking this further by opening the forum to the wider University so that more students can put forward their ideas which could potentially be rolled out into Roadchef sites in real life. Who knows, maybe we’ll see some of these concepts at Watford Gap or Clacket Lane in years to come…