In the last decade urbanists and technologists have dreamed big about how the humble street curb can morph into a modern, digitized space, seamlessly serving everyone, whether it’s an Amazon delivery truck, a casual motorist or a cyclist. The movement has inspired the vast collection of “curb data” in an effort to both accurately map the curb, and devise systems and workflows to manage the space for a growing cast of users.
“There’s a lot of hopes around what this [curb data] can do, but there’s some real barriers that I think we need to address,” Nico Larco, professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Oregon, and the director of the Urbanism Next Center, said in a recent webinar to report on some of the center’s research around curb management.
The many users of the street curb are part of the challenge of transitioning it into a fully digitized space, researchers have said.
There are random motorists looking for a parking space. Blended into this urban choreography are delivery vehicles representing any number of providers. More recently, micromobility services like bike-share and scooter-share operators have become part of the mix. And then of course, there’s the city, which holds the job of collecting data and developing policy — all with the goal of managing the curb.
“Technology only gets you some of the way when it comes to curb management,” Leo Burnett, program manager for the SMART Curb Collaborative at the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF), said in an email. “But city leadership, internal policies and coordination, as well as buy-in from stakeholders are also all areas that are important, and need to be nourished.”
In January, the OMF released a report, “Shared Learning for Smarter Curbs,” which compiled the collaborative work of 10 jurisdictions across the country, as they participated in the U.S. Department of Transportation Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) grant program, which used curb data specifications (CDS) to help support a variety of projects.
There’s value in cities being able to “connect with one another when they are trying out relatively new technology like curb digitization tech,” Burnett said. “Cities being able to share what works, what doesn’t work as advertised, and to have a space — free of vendors — to compare notes was really helpful.”
One of the first steps — and perhaps most important step — to modernizing the curb as a digital space is developing a real-time digital map of the curbs in a city or area.
Boston has been involved in this task, working to create a single “digital map of where everything lives, and where all the policies are,” said Sam Brenner, transportation technology strategist for the Boston Office of Emerging Technology. Brenner helped launch the Boston Curb Lab, which is funded by the SMART grant program.
Boston is using AI to “read the signs, and take the information on the signs and structure it into the CDS format,” Brenner said during the recent webinar.
AI is also determining the policies attached to each segment of Boston curb, given the signage and length of a curb section. The end product is a map of the curb segments, and the policies attached to these segments. The digital map can then be shared across city departments, with residents and with other outside groups, as a single source of curb regulations.
“Truth is tremendously helpful,” Larco said. “Having one place that you have everything that exists at the moment and not having to send people out to confirm … having that single source of truth is a fantastic resource.”
And of course, he noted, cities would want to integrate such a map into the workflows of departments like the sign shop — so that when a sign goes up, it automatically goes into the city’s database, updating the digital map.
The nine cities — and Miami-Dade County in Florida — that participated in the SMART grant program will likely continue the job of creating and maintaining digital curb databases, Burnett said.
However, going from an accurate digital curb map to a system that manages deliveries or parking in real time, across multiple private-sector technology platforms and users is another matter, Larco said, with no shortage of barriers.
“The idea of shifting it to one, organized digital curb is, on the one hand, fantastic. But on the other hand, [it] is asking people to take all those systems that they’ve built up over time, and switch over,” Larco said, adding, it takes faith to believe “that the new thing is going to happen as well as the thing that’s been built over time.”
Creating digital curb systems can be costly and complex, and the data integration piece can be “really complicated,” he said.
“We talked to some ride-hailing and [autonomous vehicle] AV companies, and they said they need the digital data to be updated as soon as the sign goes up,” Larco said. “Because that’s when they’re liable, and that’s when they need to start making decisions.”
Such barriers and complications around making curbs work smarter and more efficiently underscore why cities should have their policy goals “front and center,” Brenner said, particularly when so many types of curb data exist, touching so many areas.
“If you put the policy objectives front and center, then you can say, ‘OK, here’s the outcome that we want,’” he said. “Let’s say it’s reduced congestion. What are the things we need to measure or understand to reduce congestion?”
As with other technology work, Larco recommended defining the problem to be solved.
“You don’t need all the data everywhere about everything,” Larco said. “Figure out what your goals are, and what specific data you need. It takes time and money to put these things together, and time and money to maintain them. Figure out the parts that you need, then use that to get to the answers.”
