Transport User Voice October 2023 – New surveys go live

02 October 2023

Seeking road users’ views

Two new surveys for different road users have launched recently. The Electric Vehicle Charging Survey and the Lorry Drivers Facilities Survey will help us understand better the views and needs of these road users.

Electric Vehicle Charging Survey

After two years of planning and development and a successful pilot, we have successfully launched our survey into the experience of charging electric vehicles (EVs) at services on National Highways’ roads. The survey looks at how can we help improve the charging experience for current and future EV users.

We’ve partnered with Zapmap, which provides an app used by EV users to search for chargepoints, plan routes and share information, to carry out the survey. The survey will be sent to Zamap users checking in at chargepoints along England’s motorways and major ‘A’ roads. This will allow users to tell us more about their experience and whether they were able to charge or not.

If you are a Zapmap user we’d love to hear from you with the survey running continuously throughout the year. We will publish the survey findings regularly on the Transport Focus data hub from December this year. Feedback from the survey will allow us to work with chargepoint providers and services operators to improve EV user experience.

Lorry Driver Facilities Survey

A new Transport Focus survey that measures the experience of lorry drivers using facilities on England’s motorways and major ‘A’ roads has launched. The research, which includes motorway service areas, truck stops and ‘A’ road services, follows a successful pilot and an event in January.

With support and funding from National Highways we’re working with agency partner, AECOM to carry out the full-scale survey. The survey will be in the field until mid-January and given the large number of sites representative sampling will be used – one-third each year over three years. This insight will help us to better understand the experience of lorry drivers across the country and help drive improvements over time.

The survey launch coincides with the Department of Transport’s recent announcement of the first round of winners for the HGV parking and driver welfare grant scheme. This provides match funding to support industry operators to improve HGV facilities, including driver welfare facilities, toilets, shower facilities, rest areas and truck wash facilities. National Highways has a similar scheme.

Look out for the results of these surveys next year.

 

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