Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

The right direction

You may own the best tourist attraction in the region, or run a wonderful hotel, but how do your customers find their way to you?

First of all you need to:

• Have a location map available which you can send to customers and leave with the local Tourist Information Centres and hotels etc.
• Make sure that details of how to reach your establishment by road, rail, bus and taxi are included in all of your promotional material and are shown on your website, from which a copy can be downloaded and printed.
• Make use of current signing to a well-known destination nearby, by giving directions to follow their signs in your promotional literature and advertising.

In addition, the tourist industry has long recognised the benefits of adequate and distinctive signs for visitors and tourists. This section explains the rules and regulations for brown traffic signs to tourist destinations in England.

If considering traffic signs for your business you need to bear three points in mind:

• There is a national system operated by the Highways Agency which determines whether you are eligible for brown signs on the national trunk road network (which includes most motorways).
• Local Authorities have their own policies on the provision of brown signs on local roads (i.e. all roads other than trunk roads).
• There are different rules for tourist destinations located inside the M25/A282 London orbital route. The guidelines and criteria are set out in a publication called "Tourist Traffic Signs Inside the M25".