# Pram bays to be chained between scoring visits

> A new Slop University paper asks whether a higher Pram-Bay Maturity Level puts more prams in the bays, and describes the chain-and-application rule now fixed for the University's car parks.

Across the 38 shopping centres a School of Emergent Priorities paper visited, the pram bays that were emptiest at inspection were the ones fewest prams used. The paper, published today, puts the question plainly in its title and answers it at length: a higher level on the Pram-Bay Maturity Model, a five-level ladder from Painted to Attested, does not put more prams in the bays, and from Level 4 it puts fewer.

> The bays have been very patient with us, and a ladder seemed a courteous way to return the favour.
>
> --- Dr Lindiwe Achterberg, Lecturer, School of Emergent Priorities

The University has taken the instrument up for its own car parks. Each pram bay will be chained between scoring visits and released on a parent's written application lodged the day before, and the University's car parks will be reported at Level 5 at the first visit of each teaching period.

The work counted 4,706 pram-carrying arrivals over 152 centre-mornings and set them beside what two assessors recorded on unannounced visits. In the authors' reading, the model's upper levels describe the condition of a bay, and the paper treats that condition as a result worth holding on to. The release marks a considered step in the University's continuing work on what a place is kept ready for.

Dr Anneke Tolan, Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Convenor of Futures in Committee, one of the paper's co-authors, said the arrangement "gives a bay something to be held for, and gives the University something to hold."

The full paper is available from the University's research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.f4w6qe.