According to a survey by independent watchdog Transport Focus, just under half of coach and haulage businesses are satisfied with England’s motorways and major A-roads when it comes to meeting their business needs. The survey found that 46% of coach managers were satisfied with the country’s major roads, and 49% of haulage managers.
Transport Focus spoke to more 1,000 logistics and coach businesses about their views on information, response to incidents and accidents, road surface quality, rest stop quality and how National Highways manages the roads.
Chief Executive Anthony Smith said: “Our freight and coach businesses help keep the country moving and working. And while it is good to see some improvement in the overall rating of the survey, it is clear that more needs to be done to meet their needs. We’ll continue our work with National Highways to keep these issues a priority and get the improvements needed.”
Other key findings included that less than half of freight and coach businesses are satisfied with the availability of live travel information or advance planning information, and that information about overrunning roadworks is particularly low, with only 22% of respondents rating it good.
On the day-to-day management of National Highways’ roads, safety scored highest with 60% rating it good, but businesses said that improvements would be welcomed to reduce the length of the roadworks, do roadworks in smaller bites, and to clear incidents more quickly.
Responding to the survey, haulage and coach trade body the RHA said it was ‘deeply concerning.’ “National Highways must place greater priority on the experience of users. Road freight and coach industries should be at the heart of decisions relating to the Strategic Road Network,” it said.