Parking innovation Serving up solutions Louise Parfitt hears about an innovative way to collect parking payments in a safe, socially distanced way t was midnight inspiration. Seafront parking operations manager Lin Purnell is describing her eureka moment when she solved her teams social distancing issue of taking parking payments with their new card readers. You know when youve got something on your mind and you lie there at silly oclock in the morning, thinking about what you can do? I suddenly thought of all the play equipment used when we do school visits in our storeroom. So, the next day I went in to find something suitable that we could adapt to hold our card readers. Purnell and her team look after the on- and off-street parking on Weston-super-Mares seafront. The issue she was trying to solve was one that her team had never experienced before Covid-19. On their return to work after lockdown, the team had to transition from cash to card and app transactions only. The parking machines were covered up, and the team were given portable card readers. We had the problem of being able to get near enough to customers to take card payments and issue information leaflets about the new app while maintaining the two-metre social distance, she explains. I She went into the storeroom to see what equipment could be adapted as a substitute socially distanced holder. First, she tried attaching the card reader to a tennis racket, but it was much too heavy. It needed to be lightweight to enable someone to hold it out at arms length for a period of time, she says. Then I tried the badminton racket, and it was perfect. Her team were both amused and pleased. They thought it was a hoot, but were relieved that something had been put in place to enable them to do their job safely, she says. Contactless payments are taken easily, and if someone needs to enter their card number, the team uses wipes to clean the machine before and after use. It has been a challenging time for my team, but the rackets have introduced an element of fun that visitors to our seafront expect on their day out, Purnell adds. The public love it weve had quite a lot of puns and jokes around the word racquet/racket so they take it in good part. At the end of the day, it brings a smile to peoples faces, which is lovely. Being inventive At first, the team set up a parking station, armed with anti-bac wipes, gloves and masks. But they found this caused its own issues with people bunching around them. Its been a huge learning curve, Purnell says. The next stage involved the team approaching vehicles for payment, but this meant they had to solve the social distancing issue. With long delays in getting the manufacturers holders for the card readers, Purnell took matters into her own hands. Lin Purnell with the bespoke holder 38 britishparking.co.uk PN Nov20 pp38 Badminton.indd 38 22/10/2020 13:34