Motorway service area for proposed motorway service areas. The NRA held a competition to determine an operator for the first round of service areas to be opened. Superstop, a consortium consisting of Petrogas (Applegreen) and Tedcastles Oil Products (TOP), won the contract. The first service area, Lusk services, opened on the M1 on 8 September 2010. Castlebellingham services (also on the M1) opened on 29 September 2010, with Enfield services on the M4 opening shortly after in late 2010. The fourth service area, Wicklow services station (J14, M11) opened on 29 May 2014. While other locations for service areas were planned by the
Motorway service area schemes. The operating company must also pay the full cost of constructing the entry and exit slip roads and all other features required for safe access to motorway services, as well as the motorway services facility itself. In other countries, the authority responsible for the highway tends to subsidise these costs on the grounds that these areas are partly a public service to drivers. The leases provide that motorway services must operate 24 hours a day, and the costs of providing utilities and services are high. With very few customers in the early morning, they need to earn the money