Summary:
City of York Council partnered with Stopford to introduce an online booking solution for Hazel Court Household Waste Recycling Centre (HWRC), supporting the team in managing peak visitor demand, and improving the experience for customers and local residents/businesses.
Within the first three months of operation, the system facilitated 34,424 bookings, with customers showing strong adoption of self-service digital channels.
Key Results:
- 34,424 bookings completed between 1st March and 1st June
- 76% of residential waste visits booked online
- 56% of trade waste visits booked online
- Contact centre bookings reduced to just 18% of total bookings after launch
- Cancellation rates have steadily decreased month-on-month
The Challenge:
Hazel Court Household Waste Recycling Centre provides an essential service for residents and businesses across York, handling thousands of waste and recycling visits every year for items big and small.
As demand for the site’s services continued to grow, however, the site began to come under increased pressure.
The growing volume of visitors was creating congestion on surrounding roads including James Street, impacting nearby traffic and affecting local residents and commuters.
The impact was felt by visitors too. Customers were often experiencing longer waiting times as a result of a lack of queue management, making the overall experience fall below the standards the site management team wanted to deliver.
Ultimately, the HWRC team needed a way to:
- Better balance demand throughout the day and during peak periods to reduce traffic congestion
- Provide greater visibility of site availability to local residents and businesses so they could plan their visit
- Streamline the visit process for customers and site staff at the site
- Maintain a safe environment for both customers and staff
The Solution:
To address these challenges, York’s HWRC team decided that an online booking system designed around their operational needs would be the ideal option for managing site demand.
By introducing bookable timeslots, customers could choose a convenient time to visit while gaining clear visibility of availability before travelling to site. The slot would be booked for a set time period, prompting customers to attend at the start of their booking, and reducing the likelihood of queues beyond those who are booked into slots in alternative bays for that time.
At the same time, the HWRC team would have greater control over the number of vehicles arriving throughout the day, helping to prevent bottlenecks, support greater demand management, and allowing for flexibility around timeslots where needed.
As Agenda had the capability to manage multiple diaries and timeslots against the location, Hazel Court was able to map their 12 disposal bays into the system, allocating specific diaries for trade and residential waste respectively.
Finally, recording the status of bookings in real time without having to carry a laptop was going to be vital for verifying visiting residents and businesses, while also ensuring the real time data was accurate. To facilitate this, York and Stopford partnered on a custom check-in system designed to enable the site team to log arrivals as they happen and search for bookings by name, reference or vehicle registration.
The Results:
The initial 3-month period (1st March to 1st June) has shown the system to be a big success with customers, registering a total of 34,424 bookings across residential and trade waste services.
Although a significant change from the previous customer journey that did not require a booking, customers overwhelmingly adopted the booking process via online self-service, with:
- 76% of residential waste bookings completed online over the 3–month period
- 56% of trade waste bookings completed online over the 3–month period
Digital adoption was particularly strong from day one. During the first month of operation alone, online bookings accounted for 98.64% of residential visits and 99.05% of trade waste visits, highlighting how quickly customers adapted to the new online booking system.
The data also showed a decreasing reliance on contact centre telephone bookings as time went on. Although contact centre bookings reached their highest point during the initial launch period at just under 1% of bookings, this quickly fell to 0.18% in subsequent months. This outcome helped support the council’s promotion of self-serve digital channels.
In addition, operational efficiency has gradually improved after launch, with cancellation rates steadily decreasing month-on-month, reducing wasted timeslots and allowing for available times to be quickly reallocated to the public. Reduced queueing to access the Recycling Centre has resulted in less traffic congestion in and around the Hazel Court site, which was a key objective for the project’s success.
Special thanks to the Hazel Court Household Waste Recycling Centre team for their collaboration throughout the project. We look forward to continuing our work together and supporting their ongoing service improvement goals.
Our Feedback:
Waste Service Team:
“This was a genuinely collaborative project between Stopford and the council. Strong governance, clear communication, and a shared focus on customer outcomes were key to delivering a smooth and successful launch.”
“The project had a very short timescale for delivery from the outset and Stopford were incredibly responsive to those timescales. They were available very early on to work on our requirements and ultimately deliver our new booking solution on time”
“Partnering with Stopford has proved to be a highly productive experience.”
Ian Hoult – Head of Environmental Services
ICT / Digital Team
“From an ICT perspective, the implementation was straightforward, and the system has proved extremely stable. The integration approach and the custom check‑in tool have given us a robust platform that can evolve with the service.”
“The system went live on schedule, performed reliably from day one, and has continued to demonstrate excellent stability throughout the initial months of operation.”
Steve Watson – Senior Digital Project Manager
Customer Services
“The high level of booking system usage, almost entirely online, shows that residents are comfortable using online services when they are well‑designed and intuitive.”
Michael Whiteley – Customer Services Manager
Hazel Court HWRC
“Since the launch of the booking system, we’ve seen significant benefits for both customers and the on-site team. The ability to manage visitor numbers throughout the day has improved traffic flow, reduced queueing, and provided a more efficient and predictable service for everyone using the site. Customer uptake of the new system has been extremely positive, helping us achieve our aim of improving the overall experience while supporting the safe and effective operation of Hazel Court.”
Operational Team