Tag Archives: curb management

Education & Training, IPMI Blog, Resources, Transportation & Mobility

Diversify Your Portfolio

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Diversify your Portfolio blogBy Robert Ferrin

A phrase often heard from a financial advisor is resonating with municipal parking operators throughout the nation as we feel the effects of COVID-19 on our budgets.

COVID-19 has affected so many things in our world, not the least of which has been parking and transportation demand habits. Nearly immediately, cities saw their meter revenue either disappear completely or drop anywhere from 80 to 90 percent. In Columbus, we saw our meter revenue plummet 85 percent—a revenue stream that accounts for over 90 percent of our non-citation revenue.

Municipal parking practitioners have been talking about curb lane management and smart loading zones as a way to manage our asset to the highest and best use. While it remains true that loading and unloading activities continue to increase, especially in the time of COVID-19, it has become very clear that cities need to take the next step to not only allocate space at the curb for pick-up and drop-off but also monetize and capture revenue from these activities. The challenge is that these activities take place in minutes and not hours like a traditional parking session. Finding the right technology, leveraging our great vendor community, and solving for enforcement and maintaining compliance in these zones won’t be easy but are all necessary.

Our revenue streams must diversify so we can weather this storm and future storms on the horizon. I’m excited to see what innovations are born out of this crisis and how we as parking practitioners continue to serve our communities.

Robert Ferrin is assistant director for parking services with the City of Columbus, Ohio.

 

IPMI Blog, Management & Human Resources, Operations, Research, Resources, Safety & Security, Transportation & Mobility

Learning from COVID-19: Connecting with the Research Community

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COVID-19 Research and recovery
TRB/NAS

By Stephanie Dock, AICP, and Katherine Kortum, PhD, PE

This blog post is part of a special series on curb management and COVID-19. A joint effort of the International Parking & Mobility Institute, Transportation for America, and Institute of Transportation Engineer’s Complete Streets Council, this series strives to document the immediate curbside-related actions and responses to COVID-19, as well as create a knowledge base of strategies that communities can use to manage the curbside during future emergencies.

The research community is quickly engaging to help understand and evaluate responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Practitioner and researcher collaboration will improve our understanding of what has worked and what has not, and how we might change our curbside in the longer term–whether for pandemic responses or for everyday operations in the coming “new normal.”

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) has coordinated and undertaken research for decades. While TRB’s completed research efforts are not specific to COVID-19, prior research is valuable for planning and responding now. Transportation in the Face of Communicable Disease details research on response strategies, transporting essential personnel, communicating clearly during a public health crisis, and more.

TRB launched its “Research Needs Statement Express” to rapidly capture the questions and research ideas generated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This call for submissions recognizes the need to engender collaboration faster than the typical formal process for developing research ideas. TRB is also partnering with the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO), American Public Transportation Association (APTA), and others to develop and soon publish pandemic-related research needs for all transportation modes.

Finally, TRB is developing workshops to help determine questions (and some answers!) in specific areas. Summer 2020 will likely include a summit on scenario planning for transit and shared mobility during the COVID-19 recovery and in 2021, TRB and the European Commission will jointly hold a research summit on COVID-19 effects on transportation.

Academic researchers bring analytical approaches and resources municipal and private sector partners can look to complement their efforts, including:

  • Peer review network to collaborate and objectively vet research.
  • Student researchers (the next generation of transportation professionals), who bring energy and ideas.
  • Capacity to conduct objective, mutli-disciplinary research and analysis through course projects or faculty research.

Examples of academic research underway or projects supporting evaluation of mobility networks during this pandemic include:

Watch for more studies in TRB’s Research in Progress database. For ideas on who to contact for collaboration, start with USDOT’s directory of University Transportation Centers.

Strong partnerships among municipalities, the private sector, and academia are key to offering support and transformative solutions in our pandemic response.

Stephanie Dock, AICP, manages the research program for the District Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C.

Katherine Kortum, PhD, PE, is a senior program officer at the Transportation Research Board in Washington, D.C.

 

IPMI Blog, Resources, Safety & Security, Sustainability, Technology, Transportation & Mobility

COVID-19 & the Curb: Private Sector Works to Adapt and Offer Creative Solutions

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A woman in a medical mask and gloves hangs a "curbside pickup" sign.
Image: Downtown Santa Monica Inc.

This post is part of a special series on curb management and COVID-19. A joint effort of International Parking and Mobility Institute (IPMI), Transportation for America, and Institute of Transportation Engineer’s Complete Streets Council, this series strives to document the immediate curbside-related actions and responses to COVID-19, as well as create a knowledge base of strategies that communities can use to manage the curbside during future emergencies.

By Mae Hanzlik

Flexible curbside management is a small, but key, piece of many cities’ response to COVID-19. Often, these efforts have been supported or made possible with the support and technology of private-sector partners. Transportation for America reached out to its Smart Cities Collaborative sponsors to hear how they’re responding to COVID-19 and working with jurisdictions to adapt curbside management.

Adapting their platforms and launching new tools

To accommodate increased food takeout and deliveries, Coord, a curbside management software company, is offering their platform at no cost for 90 days to cities in its coverage area. Coord also worked with existing city customers who were identifying locations for temporary loading zones and fast-tracked specific feature requests.

Downtown Santa Monica Inc. (DTSM), a business improvement nonprofit in Santa Monica, Calif., used Coord’s data collection and analysis to help them quickly stand up a program where essential businesses could temporarily convert metered parking into short-term loading. “[We] were looking for any opportunity to support our district businesses during the COVID-19 crisis,” Benjamin DeWitte, DTSM’s research and data manager, shared with us. “Our prior research into curb usage, driven by COORD data collection and analysis, indicated that a shift from metered parking to short-term loading could positively impact access and efficiency for those who rely on delivery and take out business.”

Populus, whose data platform helps cities manage their curbs, streets, and sidewalks, is working with their existing city customers to provide digital solutions that support “Open Streets” and “Slow Streets”. They’re also inviting cities and agencies to apply to their Open Streets Initiative where they’ll partner with a handful of cities on implementing dynamic street policies and provide them with complimentary access to their Street Manager platform. The deadline to apply is May 15.

Lacuna, a transportation technology company, is launching a dynamic curb reservation system in May that allows cities to remotely allocate sections of curb in real-time to accommodate deliveries of food, freight, and other essential supplies.

Establishing internal teams to work directly with cities

Uber has put together an internal team that’s dedicated to working with cities and stakeholders to ensure safe access points for trips to essential places like hospitals, grocery stores, and pharmacies. They are also reaching out to cities to learn how they can best support city efforts to ensure adequate space for social distancing, offering the use of geofencing and in-app routing changes to support car-free streets.

Preparing for the future

A number of companies are starting to think about what the world may look like post-COVID. Passport, a parking and mobility software company, is starting virtual conversations through its webinars on the future of the mobility industry and the equity impacts of cashless payments.

Strong public and private partnerships are key to emergency response. We hope to continue to see the private sector work alongside municipalities to offer support and transformative tech solutions.

Mae Hanzlik is a program manager for Transportation for America in Washington, D.C.

 

 

IPMI Blog, Resources

New Curb Management Challenges

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COVID-19, curb management, parkingBy Casey Jones, CAPP

I read in the Idaho Statesman that our governor has extended the stay-at-home order in Idaho until April 30. This is not a surprise to me given the abundance of caution across the country. What is surprising is the governor’s adjustment to non-essential business. “Any facility or service (including formerly ‘nonessential’ businesses) can begin to operate via curbside services, drive-in, drive-through pickup, mailed services, or delivery services.”

I’m certain many of the businesses that were previously considered non-essential see this order as a bit of light at the end of the tunnel and I applaud the move if it can be done safely. Beyond safety, I wonder what the effect will be on curb management, most especially in highly urbanized and densely populated areas that have a limited amount of curb in the first place. So many questions arise:

  • What do cities need to do to make for an efficient and orderly use of the curb when public health is added to the list of objectives that heretofore included pedestrian safety, reduced congestion, and equity?
  • What technologies can we quickly deploy that help promote emerging curb management goals?
  • How do we effectively communicate to the masses how they are to participate in this new paradigm?
  • Will this temporary shift result in permanent changes to access and mobility behavior?
  • How will this play out for other market segments such as hospitals, universities and large venues that had their own unique curb management challenges pre-COVID-19?

One thing going for some of us now is that have time to think about these questions and how we can respond. Whatever your role, discipline or viewpoint, I encourage you to pick up the phone, schedule a conference call, and participate in any number of industry webinars and forums so together we can consider what’s likely to happen and how we can play our part.

Casey Jones, CAPP, is senior parking & mobility planner with DESMAN.

IPMI Blog, Resources

Curb Management -> Measure > Manage > Monitor > Optimize

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cars parked at the curbBy Erik Nelson

The IPMI Research & Innovation Task Force is offering this blog series to help demystify the approach to implementing curb lane management strategies for the industry. The blog series will present a common model for implementing curb management: Measure -> Manage -> Monitor -> Optimize.

This discussion will focus on measuring the curb

As with any business process, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Curb management is no exception. What of curb management is measured? We use the curb for parking, of course. In addition to that, the curb is used for TNC drop-off/pick-up, transit, package delivery, meal delivery, transit access, micro-mobility, and more. There are many components of these actions that can be measured.

Measurable attributes of curb management may include curbside occupancy, duration of stay, revenue per available space, TNC pickup time, TNC drop-off time, and quantity and duration of deliveries for a given block face. Other attributes could include number of transit vehicles making stops, number of transit passengers, number of micro-mobility devices on a given block, and micro-mobility usage over time. As it turns out, there is a lot going on.

Curb usage can be measured by physically observing conditions or automated through technology such as sensors, video analytics, or mobile applications. Mobility providers may also provide data in certain circumstances. The data can be stored in a database and reported on over time. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be developed, such as maximum or minimum events by a particular curb user group. Detailed year-over-year reports can be developed to support strategic or tactical objectives.

Identifying and measuring curb usage attributes is critical to the effectiveness of any curb management program or policy that a municipality or other curb owner may apply.

Erik Nelson is director of operations and technology consulting with Walker Consultants and a member of IPMI’s Research & Innovation Task Force.

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A Discussion About Curb Management

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By Benito Pérez

IPMI Blog 031920

Not since the 1930s has curbside management (formerly known as on-street parking) received so much attention among the transportation industry (and the public!). With cities far and wide densifying and becoming the centers of population activity, city transportation officials are looking at ways to optimize not only multi-modal mobility (via increased diverse transportation investments), but also multi-modal accessibility. Regardless of mode, both people and goods meet on the city’s curb. Left unchecked, cities face ramifications from the obvious (congestion, safety implications) to the abstract (vulnerabilities to climate change, health expectancies). It becomes imperative for municipalities, large and small, to come to terms with the need for multi-modal curbside management.

However, what is curbside management? Depending on the perspective, the term can have varying definitions. Common between them is that curbside management involves the nexus point between the roadway and the pedestrian realm. It is in this space where people and goods transact. In older cities, regulations were enacted to manage horses and carriage access and the maintenance of that nexus space (see Washington, D.C.’s Parking Acts from the late 19th century). In the early 20th century after the advent of the automobile, technology innovation to manage the curbside led to the advent of the parking meter in 1935 and its subsequent proliferation in cities far and wide since then.

Today, technology disruptions in mobility have led to the rise of transportation network companies, connected/autonomous vehicles, expansion of mass transportation services, and on-demand delivery (as a result of on-line commerce). Because of this disruption paired with densifying cities, the curbside demand has diversified and intensified. Gone are the days of facilitating the curb for vehicle storage. Today is the day to facilitate the optimization of people and goods movement.

The IPMI Research & Innovation Task Force is offering a blog post series to help demystify the approach to implementing curb lane management strategies for the industry. The blog series will present a common model for implementing curb management:

  • Measure
  • Manage
  • Monitor
  • Optimize

 

Benito Pérez is curbside management operations planning manager at the District Department of Transportation, Washington, D.C., and a member of IPMI’s Research & Innovation Task Force.

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Trends to Track

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illustration of two people tracking trends on graphsBy Casey Jones, CAPP

With the daily grind of attending to schedules, HR issues, and constant emails, it’s difficult sometimes to do more than keep your nose to the grinding stone. But missing out on the big picture may keep an organization from adapting to our changing world and staying relevant to its customers. Here are four major macro-level factors parking and mobility leaders must track to adapt and grow their organizations:

  • Cars Trends. The number of cars in the U.S. has risen steadily since a five-year period of the Great Recession. More people and driving more miles and the millennial generation has as big of an appetite for car ownership as previous generations.
  • Population Growth and Net Migration. The U.S. population continues to grow and a handful of western states top the list of places where Americans are moving. These states also have less developed public transportation systems and roadway infrastructure to accommodate new users.
  • The Effects of TNCs. Recent research reveals that transportation network companies (TNCs) are putting up considerable vehicle miles traveled and adding to the congestion of many places they serve. Curb management has emerged as a critical new area of focus in large part because of the effects of TNCs.
  • Ecommerce and Delivery. Traditional brick-and-mortar retail business continue to struggle against their ecommerce competitors, and the growth of just-in-time delivery is affecting urban transportation systems.

Focusing on the right trends and not becoming unnecessarily bogged down by the minutiae will help an organization innovate and prepare for the future.

Casey Jones, CAPP, is senior parking & mobility planner with DESMAN. He will be presenting on this topic at the 2020 IPMI Conference & Expo, May 31 – June 3, in San Antonio, Texas. For information and to register, click here.

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Collaboration

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Business people putting hands in together.By Robert Ferrin

The parking, mobility, and transportation industry is changing at a head-spinning rate and driving us to innovate and be responsive to our customers, new technology, and increasing demand for the curb and parking space. As the industry changes, expectations have increased for what a parking and mobility professional is and in what space we operate.

These expectations were never higher than for our team as we developed the Short North Parking Plan. Our team quickly realized that collaboration would be critically important to the success of the plan’s development and implementation. So what did collaboration look like?

First, it meant bringing together a wide array of internal and external stakeholders to develop a plan that was as comprehensive as possible for as many user groups as possible. It meant engaging with the community in public meetings, focus groups, online and in-person surveys, and via social media.

Second, collaboration meant the city couldn’t implement a dynamic plan alone. The city collaborated with the vendor community to put together a holistic parking plan that leveraged technology and used a data-driven approach to modify in the future. Combining virtual permitting, mobile payment, license plate recognition cameras, and a parking benefit district to leverage newfound revenues was a formula that worked for the Short North.

Most importantly, it took a collaborative approach between multiple entities and organizations to get it done and become work the city is using as a foundation for parking enhancements in other parts of Columbus.

Robert Ferrin is the assistant director for parking services with the City of Columbus, Ohio. He will be presenting on this topic at the 2020 IPMI Conference & Expo, May 31 – June 3, in San Antonio, Texas. For information and to register, click here.

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WSJ: Curb Space is the New Gridlock

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Delivery truck on curb in city“Curb management” isn’t a new term for members of the parking and mobility profession, but it is hitting consumer media outlets for the first time. The Wall Street Journal this weekend called the space along the curb “new gridlock in America,” and outlined why delivery trucks in particular are contributing to city congestion and what those companies are trying to do about it.

“Simply put, the curb today in most American cities is overwhelmingly devoted to single-occupancy personal-vehicle parking, which is simply unsustainable,” the piece quotes a UPS spokesman as saying. It discusses recent curb management pilot programs in several cities along with steps delivery companies are taking–including bike-powered deliveries, locker pickups, and simple truck consolidation–to help manage congestion at the curb.

Read the whole story here.

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Study: Curb Reservations Reduce Parking Problems, Congestion

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no double parking signA three-month pilot program focusing on curb management in Washington, D.C., saw double parking, bike-lane blocking, and other parking challenges reduced when delivery drivers could reserve curb space. Double parking was reduced by 64 percent in areas where curb space could be reserved for deliveries, and fewer drivers blocked bike lanes and crosswalks to park “just for a minute.”

The pilot program ended last month and its infrastructure was dismantled, but city officials say they’re looking for the next great thing to bring similar or better results. More than 6,000 drivers used the pilot system about 15,000 times and some say they already miss it. A similar 12-month pilot launches in Columbus, Ohio, this week with one difference: Drivers will have to pay to use it. Read the whole story here.