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At one level the problems with motorway service stations are not difficult to assess – little choice, poor quality and high prices. More often than not, customers are experiencing an acute gap between the service they expect and the service they’re receiving.

Yet, the solution of turning motorway services into a sort of retail centre, as explained in 'Motorway Attractions', leaves me feeling uneasy.

Overcrowded motorways and service areas epitomize one of the problems of our time: we all use our cars too much. Also, too many of the goods we buy are transported over long distances. We live in a consumer society. We have access to a previously unknown quantity and variety of consumer goods, and shopping has become a major pastime.

This enjoyment comes at a heavy price. Choked motorways are only one problem. Overflowing landfill sites have to take all the packaging and all those nice new goods at the end of their - sometimes very short - useful life. Global warming is linked to the energy used for travel and for the production and transportation of all those consumer goods we enjoy.

In this context, motorway service areas as retail havens ring all sorts of alarm bells. Do we really need yet more retail centres where we can spend yet more time, buying yet more things? And do we really want to encourage yet more traffic in order to get to such retail centres?

Perhaps there are different ways of consuming and enjoying ourselves, which still allow us to flow with the crowd, to hunt for new objects, to show off our good taste, to bring variety into our lives. Quirky second-hand markets, colourful farmers’ shops, exchange and sharing schemes: could we as a society make more use of these and thus give our poor roads and the environment a break?

Maybe then motorway service stations could concentrate on what they were meant to provide, that is clean toilets, decent hot food and a chance to stretch our legs on those unavoidable journeys.

Further reading

• Calling companies to account – explore the tactics used to keep companies in line
• Your trip at what cost? – what is the environmental impact of your holiday choices?
• The End of Over-Consumption: Towards a Lifestyle of Moderation and Self-Restraint by Marius De Geus, published by International Books
• The Myth of Green Marketing: Tending our Goats on the Edge of Apocalypse by Toby Smith, published by University of Toronto Press

About the author

Anja Schaefer is a Lecturer in Management at the Open University Business School. She’s been lecturing in marketing and corporate social responsibility for eight years. Anja has published material on consumer behaviour, sustainable consumption and corporate environmental management.