A pleasant night’s rest

Sleep in properly, get into the truck and continue driving immediately – this is possible if you decide to stay overnight in a roatel. Advantages of mini hotels in a container are great convenience and their practical position on the motorway.

Legally prescribed weekly rest periods are on the horizon. For truckers, that means out of the truck and into the hotel room. Because the new EU mobility package stipulates that drivers will no longer be allowed to spend their weekly rest periods in their own truck. Rather, logistics companies should pay for suitable accommodation for their employees over the mandatory break. The question frequently arises as to where drivers and trucks should actually stay. Overnight options along motorways are limited. Furthermore, there are often limited parking options for trucks, especially at inner-city or countryside hotels.

“We wanted to find a solution exactly where truck drivers park anyway.”

Christian Theisen, founder and director of roatel GmbH

This starting point is also indicated in the name of the micro-hotel concept – a composite of ‘road’ and ‘hotel’. The roadside hotel is therefore located directly on the motorway – where truckers pass by daily, at service areas and truck stops. At first, anyone staying in the “roatel” finds themselves literally standing in front of a container, but enters a bright and well-equipped hotel room with WLAN, TV, a shower and a toilet as soon as the door opens. “Quality is very important to us,” says Ralf-Peter Kals, co-founder and managing partner of roatel. Which is why lots of time and effort went into equipping the mini hotels. Having seen that there wasn’t anything appropriate on the market, the roatel team developed its container solution itself. The frame is formed by 45-foot containers, which are longer, higher and wider than the standard market models and offer space for four individual rooms with a shower and toilet. The latter makes mini hotels an attractive option for female truckers in particular. “If my truck is parked right at the back in the corner, I have to go 400 to 500 metres to the nearest toilet. Especially in the dark, that’s not nothing. In a roatel room, I just have to get up and I have my own shower and toilet – a huge advantage,” says truck driver Christina Scheib, assessing her stay in a roatel as positive.

Significant development of the containers was also important to Christian Theisen and Ralf-Peter Kals. Value was placed here on good insulation – according to the standard for detached houses – and reliably developed sound insulation, which has been achieved by triple insulation of the containers. The mini hotels also have heating and air-conditioning systems. A special ventilation system ensures consistently good air in the 28-square-metre rooms. A daily room cleaning service is also included in the overnight price of 49 euros a night.

Easy booking and payment via the website – anyone who plans to spend the night in a roatel room requires an e-mail address and credit card, and can make the booking quite easily via operators’ websites. Users receive an e-mail confirming their booking, a reminder e-mail on the day they’re due to rent the room and the ‘key’ to open the door to the room automatically. There are currently roatels at four sites in Germany. The clever hotel concept will be expanded as follows: By mid-June, ten more should have been added. The roatel team intends to have 30 functioning sites by the end of the year. And there is also the prospect of expanding the concept to elsewhere in Europe. “We see the need for drivers. The roatels are our attempt to provide a little piece of this puzzle,” says Christian Theisen.