If you spend any time at all driving on the UK’s motorways you’ve probably noticed something appearing at nearly every single service station in the country for the last month or so. Something called “PitStop“.

Decorated in rather alarming yellow and black colouring (Which usually suggests caution or danger – an interesting choice for a company focused on drivers to use), it claims “When you stop, the perks start.”. Again, this sounds rather similar to “When the fun stops, stop” which is the slogan used by the Gambling Commission to remind people that gambling is supposed to be entertainment and not something to risk everything on. Perhaps the ad agency PitStop used were in a hurry to get to the pub and dashed this campaign off last thing on a Friday afternoon.

There are massive billboards in the parking area as you enter. Animated ads proclaim it’s presence on the video screens by the main building. There are billboards decorating the main hallway, and even in the gents there are tiny posters above…every…single…urinal encouraging you to download the app. Clearly they’ve spent a massive amount of money on this.

But what actually is it? Until you approach the app store, the most information you get is “The Loyalty App for Roadside Rewards”. Cryptic and vague. But I guess I’m susceptible so I went ahead and downloaded it anyway.

Oh. It’s an app that rewards you for visiting MWSAs (Motoway Service Areas. Yes, I’m a transport geek and I will use the official term). But how? And why?

The first question is very simple to answer. When you stop at a service area, you open the app and “check in” to the location. This gives you (after verifying your location with GPS) 50 “Pitstop Points” which can be used to “Plan smarter routes, unlock discounts, and rack up rewards”. Hmm.

Why bother?

Now…looking further into the app it seems that not every service area in the country is covered, and a few on major dual carriageways which you might not expect are. Curious. What do they have in common? Well, I know. We’ll get back to that. Next we’ll look at why you would want to waste your time with this.

“Plan smarter routes”. I’m not really sure how that is supposed to work. The UK road network isn’t THAT flexible, and all this app can do is tell you where the nearest rest area is. Well, the nearest rest area which they want you to use, anyway. Don’t bother looking for Leeming Bar, Tebay or Todhills because you won’t find them on the app. Their idea of a “smarter route” seems to be one which will take you past as many of their rest areas as possible. “Smarter” means “Potentially more profitable for us”.

You also have the option to select “Favourite brands” so that rest areas which contain them are highlighted on the map. I suppose if you’re desperate for a Taco Bell then they’ll help you with your urges.

Oh, wait. Never mind. Even though there are eleven in the country, most at rest areas that Pitstop cover, you can’t filter by it. But you can by Coco Di Mama even though there are only six. Perhaps only brands which have agreed to co-operate with them appear on the app.

I’m using the term rest area because the term MWSA applies exclusively to ones on the motorway network which meet certain criteria. And there are quite a few on here such as Derby and Scotch Corner which do not meet those requirements. Yet many which do, don’t. So “rest area” is a more general term that seems appropriate.

What else do we have? “Unlock discounts”. Well, yes. There are some discounts available. Not many, and it seems to be at the whim of the rest area operator. There are four main operators in the UK. Moto, Welcome Break, Roadchef and Extra. There are other minor players such as EE and Applegreen but I’ve yet to come across one of theirs on this app so as far as Pitstop is concerned they might as well not exist.

As of the time of writing, all Extra rest stops give you….nothing.

As of the time of writing, all Welcome Break rest stops give you….nothing.

Not off to a good start. However, if you stop at a Moto you can have a half price 500ml bottle of Diet Coke or Coke Zero. Not regular Coke. And just the one. According to Admiral that brings the cost down from £2.19 to £1.10. Not bad, I suppose. But you can’t use the offer immediately. You have to save up your points first. How many points do you need? 50. How many points do you get for stopping? 50. Great. Convenient.

Oh, and you can get a free Mars Bar from WHSmith for 25 points. If the staff can actually figure out how to apply the offer. Despite the posters and videos being plastered all across their workplace for weeks on end, they’d apparently never heard of it and it took three people to process it.

RoadChef actually offer the most from this app. A free garlic bread from Coco Di Mama. When you buy a “Pot”, whatever that is. A free flavour syrup from Costa. When you buy a coffee. Free toast from Fresh Food Cafe. When you buy a full English breakfast. I suppose if you were going to buy these items anyway it’s a nice incentive, but any rational person wouldn’t be buying their food on the motorway in the first place so I can’t imagine anybody making a special trip just for these “offers”.

Oh, and another Free Mars Bar from WHSmith.

What’s the last perk? “Rack up rewards”. These allow you to spend your points on offers from third-party companies…and it’s exactly the same crap you see everywhere nowadays. A discount on your breakdown cover. A discount on your first Gousto box. A discount on a course from Reed Courses. A discount on your first MyProtein order. A discount on your first Kaytea order. These are the same “offers” you see absolutely everywhere nowadays. They come on glossy slips of paper in your eBay or Amazon order without asking. They appear in banners on Facebook. They appear on the company websites if you go there and you’re a new customer. Nothing here is valuable, exclusive or of any use whatsoever.

They do have the option to spend your points on prize draw entries. Though given I’m apparently in the “top 0%” (see later) and have entered hundreds of times into draws (well, they only have two, and they’re the same two they had last month) I’m a little suspicious. They never even announced the winner of the last one.

Who?

So…what’s the point? I don’t know. It feels like they built the entire system first but are struggling to actually get companies interested in working with them. But who are they? The PitStop website doesn’t list a postal address, and says that the company behind it is “Pitstop Advertising Limited” who according to Companies House have been around since 2001. But they used to be known as “ADMEDIA (LEISURE) LIMITED”.

Oh. It’s them. Also known as I-Media, it’s the company that owns that video screens that were put up all across the country in our rest areas during the pandemic. That certainly explains how they can afford to do all this advertising. They own the billboards, clip-screens and video displays. All they had to do was leave space in their schedule for August to do some self-promotion and all it cost them was the advertising revenue which would have come their way from other companies.

That also explains why certain big rest areas are missing. Leeming Bar, Tebay and Todhills don’t use them for their on-site advertising. So Pitstop are deliberately excluding them from their service and trying to pretend to drivers that they don’t exist. If you’re travelling North on the M6 and using their app to navigate, you might think that after Moto Burton-In-Kendal there’s nothing until Moto Southwaite…better stop at Burton for lunch and fuel, yes? Conveniently missing out Tebay, one of the nicest and consistently highest-rated rest areas in the country, with a farm shop, local food and stunning views out across the Lake District. Worse, if you’re travelling up the A1 to Edinburgh, they may make you think there’s nothing north of Washington until you get to Kinross. That’s a distance of 162 miles and misses out Seaton Burn, Stannington, Willowtree, Adderstone, Lindisfarne and Monktonhall. But they don’t pay for Admedia so screw ’em.

I don’t blame Pitstop for wanting to encourage drivers to visit rest stops that benefit them, but surely pretending their rivals don’t exist won’t help anybody? The least they could do is mark them on the map in grey and say “Not affiliated” or something similar. Octopus Electroverse do that. Non-affiliated chargers don’t appear, but they don’t pretend they don’t exist. Their website FAQ says this:

Do you only recommend services relevant to me?

Pitstop shows all Motorway Service Areas on your route. Look for the ‘P’ icon to spot your preferred stops and live offers.

This is not true. Here is a screenshot of their app showing the M6 corridor up to the Scottish border:

And here is what the same area looks like according to Motorway Services Online

They missed out the J38 Truckstop, Tebay Services and Penrith Truckstop. Even if we’re being generous and we exclude the truckstops, they’ve still missed out Tebay. This is especially galling since their website credits Motorway Services Online for the photographs used in their app. If they were open about their mission, it might be understandable. But their FAQ clearly says “Pitstop shows all Motorway Service Areas on your route” (my emphasis). This is not true. But then, they are in advertising. Truth isn’t their aim.

There’s something else they claim that isn’t true, either:

How does it work?

Create an account by entering your vehicle registration number. Pitstop uses ANPR cameras and location services to detect your stop at a Motorway Service Area.

Nope. Pitstop don’t have access to the cameras at the sites. They are merely in charge of the advertising. I’ve tested this – the registration plate they have on my account doesn’t match the vehicle I’m driving and it hasn’t for three weeks, yet I have no issue logging visits. Although curiously, I do occasionally get the app telling me “Thanks for logging your visit to X”, where X is a site over 200 miles from my current location. Is it possible that I’m using a plate that somebody else who is also using Pitstop is trying to use? Plausible, though very unlikely. Their app tells me that I’m “in the top 0% of MSA visitors”, whatever that means. Perhaps a rounding error? I don’t think there are many people actually putting the effort in.

There’s also the fact that I discovered purely by chance…that you don’t have to actually STOP at the services to log a visit. Their GPS is vague enough that simply driving within half a mile is enough to register a visit. If as they claim they were using the camera to detect visits, this wouldn’t work would it? So driving from Sheffield to East Midlands Airport you can tag Rotherham, Woodall North, Woodall South, Tibshelf North, Tibshelf South, Trowell North, Trowell South and Donington in the space of about an hour without even stopping. That’s 400 points to spend on….well, nothing really.

Speaking of vague…they don’t seem to know where a lot of the locations are. This is their entry for Oxford Services on the M40:

The black marker is their alleged location for the site. It’s actually in the cream coloured patch on the left…on the other side of the road. Good thing their GPS is vague otherwise it would be impossible to log this location. For quite a few locations where there is one on either side of the road, they’ll have one in the correct location, but the other on the median strip of the road for some reason.

The whole thing comes across as very amateurish and thrown together in a hurry…which would make sense if it wasn’t for the fact it’s from a company that’s been in the business for over a decade and carpeted the entire country with advertising for it.

Speaking of advertising…even though the company does nothing but advertising, they provide advertising for the owners of the rest stops and they provide advertising for the brands within the rest stops….the app itself also contains banner ads. Not at the top. Not at the bottom. Right across the information you’re trying to read. Thanks. This one’s for a company called Geozilla which sounds incredibly invasive.

Still, the free Mars Bars were appreciated.