Long supermarket lines are becoming a fact of life under the lockdown but a Dunedin blockchain engineer thinks he has created a simple solution.
After noticing how busy the shops were Gareth Hayes decided to create a website to help stop the long queues.
The website, www.howlongistheline.org, lets users check how long the queues are at different supermarkets.
People have been asked to limit the number of trips they are making to the supermarkets and when they do shop to stick to the physical distancing requirements.
“I just wanted to know how busy the shops were, how many people were waiting out the front to get inside,” he said.
The more people using the website the more accurate the information will be.
“There’s no point in everyone going all at once, which seems to be happening quite a lot.”
Despite being live for only a couple of days, Mr Hayes said early indications were quite positive as people were already updating the information and adding new stores.
Supermarket staff had also contacted him to say what a great tool it was.
Anyone could add a new shop and the site is available for any store which is open during the lockdown.
The entire project is open source meaning anyone has the ability to make changes to the site where they can see an improvement.
“Give the site a go, see if it helps you and let me know if there is anything I can do to make it better.”
