UK’s best and worst motorway services revealed

A survey conducted by the UK’s transport watchdog has revealed the motorway services with the best customer satisfaction ratings, with Welcome Break’s Rotherham facility coming out top, and seven Moto sites featuring in the top 10 rankings.

However, it was not all good news for the firms, with both having at least one MSA in the bottom of the rankings.

The data comes from Transport Focus, a public body funded by the Department for Transport, and whose 2026 Motorway Services User Survey received feedback from 37,000 MSA visitors.

While Welcome Break’s Rotherham Services was named the top site in the country, Moto’s Rugby Services came second, while its Sawtry facility took bronze. Tellingly, the top three MSAs are all relatively new arrivals. Welcome Break Rotherham opened in early 2025, as did Moto’s Sawtry MSA, while Rugby Services began welcoming visitors in 2021.

The top rankings were dominated by Moto, with seven of the 10 most highly rated services run by the firm, which is joint-owned by an academic pension scheme and a Jersey-based private equity firm. However, four of the MSAs with the lowest customer satisfaction ratings were Moto sites.

Similarly, while Roadchef’s Norton Canes services featured in seventh position in the best-rated sites, the four worst-ranked MSAs in the UK are run by the company, which is owned by Macquarie Group, an Australian financial services firm.

Across the 123 services rated by visitors taking part in Transport Focus’ survey, Extra and Moto were ranked most highly, with a 96% customer satisfaction rating, with Welcome Break on 95% and Roadchef on 93%.

Cost remains something of a sticking point for MSA customers, however, as overall food and drink only scored value for money ratings of between 59% and 74%, while the value offered by motorway EV charging facilities scored just 58% – though overall satisfaction with MSA EV charging scored 84%.

There was better news to be found within MSA staff, however, with workers’ friendliness and helpfulness scored at 95%, up two percentage points on 2023. MSA toilets were also rated well, with a 92% score, up four points on 2023.

While no firms will want to feature in the bottom 10 rankings, Transport Focus’ director, Louise Collins, points out that when the survey launched in 2017, the worst-rated site was given a customer satisfaction score of just 62%, whereas: “This year even the lowest-rated site scores a creditable 86%,”  she says.

Transport Focus also singles out Moto’s Lancaster Southbound services for gaining eight percentage points in customer satisfaction ratings (from 88% to 96%) compared to 2023; Welcome Break’s Cardiff Gate services, up seven points from 89% to 96%, and Moto’s Swansea MSA, which has improved from 92% to 98% since 2023.

Other details to emerge from the survey include the fact that motorway services bring much needed rest and rejuvenation to travellers, with the proportion of visitors feeling happy or relaxed rising by 31% after stopping at an MSA, while there was a 22% drop in visitors feeling stressed or frustrated.