i-media's four exclusive operator partners, Moto, Extra, Welcome Break and Roadchef, have all been ranked among the UK's top-performing motorway service operators in Transport Focus's 2026 Motorway Services User Survey, with satisfaction scores ranging from 93 to 96 per cent.
The annual survey, which polls tens of thousands of visitors across the UK's motorway service network, found that satisfaction with staff friendliness and helpfulness has risen to 95 per cent (up from 93 per cent in 2023), washroom satisfaction holds at 92 per cent, and EV charging satisfaction has climbed to 84 per cent overall. The survey also found that the proportion of visitors feeling happy or relaxed rises by 31 percentage points between arrival and departure, with disabled customers seeing a 34-point swing this year, the strongest improvement recorded since the measure began.
The results land at a pivotal moment for i-media, which operates more than 1,000 full-motion digital screens across 134 motorway service areas in exclusive partnership with all four leading operators.
The news comes as i-media continues to build out its data-led proposition. In October, the business launched ANPR Audiences, the first product in UK out-of-home to combine real-time vehicle data with Starcount's open banking and behavioural datasets, allowing brands to target audiences by who they are as well as what they drive, the moment they arrive at one of i-media's sites. Lloyds Bank was confirmed as the launch partner, running a campaign across 123 motorway service areas in England and Wales to reach both its own customers and competitor "spillover" audiences.
Sam Tester, Chief Revenue Officer at i-media, said:
This survey confirms what we see in our own data every week: motorway services are a far bigger, more engaged audience than ever before. Visitors consistently leave happier and more relaxed than when they arrived. These are genuine retail and leisure destinations now, not just fuel stops. Standards are rising across the board. 8 sites share the top satisfaction score of 99%, the site that ranked bottom in 2023 now scores 97%, and the gap between our best and worst performers has narrowed from 38 points in 2017 to just 13 today. EV demand is growing too: the share of visitors charging during their stay has doubled since 2023 to 8%, and 14% now drive an electric or plug-in hybrid, up from nine.
Phil Diamond, Chief Portfolio Officer at i-media, added:
These results reflect real investment by our operator partners: staff friendliness up to 95 per cent, washrooms at 92 per cent, EV charging satisfaction climbing to 84 per cent. We see the impact directly: over a million Londoners alone visit a motorway service area every week, 70 per cent of them midweek, often missed entirely by city-based campaigns. Partnering with the operators leading the UK on satisfaction is exactly the foundation i-media's proposition is built on.
The network continues to grow. i-media is building out its data-led, digital-first network further, with plans to reach 1,500+ screens across the estate by the end of 2027, alongside continued, valued partnerships with Titchfield and Uni-led as the rollout continues.
For advertisers, the findings reinforce a proposition i-media has been making for some time: that motorway service areas combine huge scale (more than 10 per cent of all UK registered vehicles pass through the network in a single week) with a receptive, high-dwell-time audience and precise, real-time targeting capability, at a moment when out-of-home still accounts for only around 5 per cent of total media spend despite delivering 24 per cent of commercial media time.
