Background

During the Covid-19 lockdown, a spike in home improvement projects and Household Recycling Centres closed, people across the UK built up significant accumulations of waste. So when Centres reopened, it wasn't all plain sailing. Residents experienced long queues at the region’s Household Recycling Centres.

In Birmingham, the picture was the same. It was anticipated there would be an initial surge as people sought to dispose of waste created during the pandemic-enforced closure, but wait times remained in excess of two hours. 

Birmingham City Council and its domestic waste partner Vieola, listened to feedback, such as “I waited in a queue for nearly 4 hours and I got turned away at the gate because the site was closing!”, “Hours of waiting and you're not guaranteed to get in before the sites close.” and “My business is being affected by the long queues and my customers can't get to my store because of the cars queuing and blocking the access!”

Solution

To address this situation, Birmingham City Council and its domestic waste parter, Veolia, decided to develop an online booking system.

Offering slots online would enable the Council to manage the flow of visitors to the Household Recycling Centre sites far more efficiently, putting an end to long queues.

It wanted a solution that would give people as much flexibility as possible when planning a trip, and also ensure a robust and fair management, to ensure only eligible residents could book and that the number of bookings made was equitable. 

Searching for solutions, the Council identified a booking system used by Leeds City Council that was rapidly deployed and was delivering good results. This was built using the Aire Innovate platform. 

The Council worked with Aire Innovate to customise the solution exactly to their needs.

Results

During covid, the system allowed the Council to rapidly put in place a solution to alleviate residents’ frustrations. 

Feedback from residents was positive “the sites are easy to access with the new booking system in pace!”, “The booking system worked and made everything go smoothly.”  

After the pandemic, the decision was made to keep the online booking system, as the convenience and efficiencies it offered remained.  

Ongoing iterations were made to the booking system as Veolia’s services developed. Plus additional functionality was added, including real time booking and cancellations. Plus the service has been extended to include Residential Van Booking.