Long days, few sockets

Why it works for universities

• Serves a dense, repeat-use population
• No sockets to install and no cables to replace
• It can be free at the point of use, depending how it is set up

The problem here

A student is on campus from a morning lecture to an evening study session with a phone that is also their timetable, their reading, their campus card and how they get home. The sockets are in the library and they were taken at nine. The workaround is well known to every campus: extension leads trailing across a floor, and students choosing where to sit by where the power is rather than where they can work.

Where the station goes

The library and the main student centre carry most of the use, because that is where the long sessions happen. A station near the main entrance or the bus stop covers the other pattern — the student who is leaving, not staying, and realises they cannot get home. On a spread-out campus, several small placements beat one large one.

What this takes from you

What it takes from the institution is a location and a point of contact. The hardware, its upkeep and its restocking are ours, so there is nothing to procure and usually no capital approval to wait for. How the charging is paid for is agreed with you, and a campus has more room to be creative about it than most places — a faculty, a student union or a brand can each take it on, or the university can simply have it handled. Different buildings do not have to work the same way.

What managers ask

Students do not all have cards. Does that exclude them?

It is a real constraint and worth being straight about: borrowing requires a saved card in the app, so a student without one cannot use it. On a campus that is the strongest argument for having someone else cover the cost, so the student pays nothing — but the card is still what secures the unit against non-return, so it is still required to borrow.

Who maintains it during the holidays?

We do, and a quiet campus simply means fewer battery swaps. Nothing needs doing by your facilities team at any point in the year, and there is no summer decommissioning to arrange — the station can sit idle without attention.

Do we need to run a procurement process?

Usually not, because there is nothing being bought — no capital item, no licence and no service fee from the institution. That tends to place it with facilities or student services rather than procurement, but your own rules govern, and we are happy to provide whatever documentation they ask for.