Digital Kerbs for Urban Mobility

The Kerb is Prime Real Estate

“Traditionally, the kerb has focused on private vehicle parking. Changing demands requires cities to understand kerb utilisation to determine if private vehicle parking is the best use based on actual activity and mobility goals. The kerb has the potential to provide greater access to more people if options beyond private vehicle parking are considered.”

(Source: Walker Consultants)

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How do Cities Optimise their Kerb Management?

Cities can take steps to optimise their kerb management by establishing goals for kerb access that match their transport strategy. Once this has been done, a city will need to thoroughly analyse the existing kerbside conditions. This goes far beyond knowing where the metered parking is and what the tariffs are. To approach this analysis from a place of facts and data, a city can digitise their kerbside restrictions across a targeted area - or the entire LGA.

By digitising the current kerbside restrictions, a city can then:

• Use data to model future kerbside use
• Use data to inform congestion modelling
• Inform economic development
• Visualise data to help communities understand kerbside rules
• Communicate in real-time kerbside changes

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Why Digitise the Kerb?

The digitised kerbside restriction opens up a wealth of possibilities for future innovation. A city should view this as a foundational dataset which will support intelligent transport systems and improve mobility. In fact, if you think about the macro trends we see in mobility - e.g. CAVs (connected and autonomous cars), MaaS (Mobility-as-a-Service), expanding options for micro mobility; all of these will benefit from the digitisation of kerbside restrictions. 

A city will need to control and manage this information in an increasingly digital format, to allow these emerging technologies to be up to date and accurate for changes which may be affected by city events, temporary road closures, and maintenance.

Indeed, long term, strategic and data-driven decisions aside; a city can also capitalise on this investment in the near term. 
An up to date inventory of categorised kerbside parking restriction signage is a serious level up for a lot of cities that Modii works with. Asset managers can sort maintenance and replacements for vandalised and damaged signs in order of where it is needed most. Place managers can view the digital twin of the kerbside signage to gather localised information for developments, informing changes to be planned without even leaving their office. 

With consumer facing tools, the public can more easily plan their journey:

 "You can plan that trip…and you can have confidence that when you get there you’re going to find a park in that area that suits the nature of your trip"

Dylan King - Transport for NSW Innovation Lead, talking about Modii’s public facing parking finder in the Northern Beaches.

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