Mobility Services and Technology

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Mobility

Services and How curb management is part of the smart city and mobility road map.

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By Teresa Trussell, CAPP

S A PARKING INDUSTRY VETERAN, I have been

reading this magazine for approximately 17 years, and I must say I have never seen more excitement than at this moment over a single topic: curb management. As I read each article, I find myself thinking about the concept of the smart city and smart mobility and how these services relate to technology.

32 PARKING & MOBILITY / SEPTEMBER 2019 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG

Defining the Terms Before we dive into the smart city and mobility road map, it is important to define what smart city and smart mobility means. The first time I read this phrase I thought to myself, “What, were we a dumb city before?” My answer was yes—in a sense! Smart City Data has provided cities and operators with the necessary information to make informed decisions that would have previously been made on assumptions or manual counts. Having access to this data in real time provides identifiable patterns that allow decision-makers to continually adjust their transportation and parking processes. This data is a result of technology implementations on both the transportation and parking home fronts. The International Data Corporation defines a smart city as development based on smart initiatives

ISTOCK / PICKBIZ

I cannot help but picture curb management as a waypoint on the road map, rather than the destination itself. Curbs did not suddenly just appear—we’ve all been backing into them for years while trying to parallel park and hoping no one noticed—so why is it just now an issue? The answer is quite simple and takes us all back to our economics 101 class: supply and demand. A recent shift to urban and alternative transportation methods as well as the proliferation of smartphones as a connected resource have resulted in competing needs for the curb areas, which can no longer be considered as only parking (or no parking) zones, loading and unloading areas, and utility agency-use regions. This shift has pushed cities and parking operations into rethinking their transportation and parking models with a desire to create a dynamic downtown region that’s built around the smart city and smart mobility road map.


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