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Web Conference 2022.03.22 Curb

Michael Schnuerle edited this page Mar 24, 2022 · 11 revisions

Web Conference - Curb Working Group

  • Every other week Tuesday call at 9am PT, 12pm ET, 5/6pm CET

Conference Call Info

Meeting ID: 898 5980 7668 - Passcode 320307
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0lcuCgrjwsHNyZRagmc86b12iCmWGBHfjq

One tap mobile: +13126266799,,89859807668#,,,,*320307# US (New York)

Dial by phone: +1 929 436 2866 (US) (Find your local number)

Agenda

Main Topics

  1. Welcome (5 mins) - Marisa Mangan, SANDAG
  2. Who is using CDS? and call for more orgs (5 mins) - Michael Schnuerle, OMF
  3. Curb and CDS Presentation 1 (20 mins) - Populus and Curb Innovation Cohort
  4. Curb and CDS Presentation 2 (20 mins) - Automotus and Pittsburgh DOMI
  5. Q&A (10 mins)

Organizers

  • Hosts: Marisa Mangan, SANDAG
  • Note Taker: Eric Mai, Lacuna
  • Facilitator: Michael Schnuerle, OMF
  • Outreach: Angela Giacchetti, OMF

Recap

Notes

Action Items

  • None

Minutes

CDS overview reminder (Marisa Mangan)

  • CDS is being built in the open.
  • On January 25th we released the first candidate of CDS on Github.
  • 1.0 of the spec is approved by the tech council. The OMF board will give their final review of the spec later this afternoon.
  • Work has progressed on privacy guidance.
  • We have several helpful resources on policy, privacy, and pilot programs.

Who is using CDS (Michael Schnuerle)

  • We have 22 organizations (cities, software companies, hardware companies) that are actively developing on CDS or plan to in the near term.
  • Contact us if you want to be added to this list. We want to keep it up to date.
  • Sensor providers and delivery providers can register as providers with CDS.

Populous Curb Innovation Cohort (Eliot Mueting)

  • Populous overview
    • Populous is transitioning from mobility management to curb management and see lots of parallels between the two.
    • Populous is a mobility management data platform used by may cities.
    • Populous works with data in two directions:
      • They process data (MDS, GBFS, etc.) from fleet operators and display it to cities.
      • They also communicate regulations from cities to providers
    • They have a mobility manager product with a live map, data validation, reporting, and many other features.
  • Populous curb manager
    • Background and approach
      • They see micromobility as a testing ground of sorts for their curb product. There are many parallels between micromobility management and curb management.
      • Curb innovation cohort: From May through December 2021, they met with 10 cities in a curb management pilot project
      • They also talked to as many commercial fleet providers as they could.
      • This will continue in a Phase 2 over the next 6 months.
      • Their goal is to come up with an action plan for their customers on how to solve their curb pain points.
      • The challenge: the curb is crowded, demand is high, and access is difficult
      • Their objectives: bring cities together to share ideas on how to rapidly iterate to improve the curb using data.
    • Goals
      • Operators are eager for cities to digitize their curb policies.
      • Some curb operators are primarily interested in commercial loading use cases.
      • Others are most interested in understanding how their curbs are current used.
      • Others are most interested in dynamic digital curb management to improve access.
      • Others are most interested in improving their management of specific business districts.
    • Curb Management Product
      • There are three primary features in their curb product:
        • Commercial Loading Trend (CLT) data, based on a 10% sample of commercial fleet activity. Helps cities measure existing curb activity.
          • Establishes a historical baseline for decision making.
          • Cities used this tool during the pandemic to quickly set up priority food delivery loading zones, and measure their effects.
        • Inventory management: digitize and manage curb zones and regulations.
          • Lots of cities have their assets partially digitized.
          • One learning is that fully digitizing their assets is daunting. But in just 2 staff days, curb operators can digitize an important subset of curb assets (e.g., downtown) and start to see value there.
        • Automated loading zone payments
          • Cities can generate invoices based on parking events according to digital policy
    • Questions
      • Question: How can you keep physical signange up to date with digital policy? How can we make digital policy not overwhelming?
        • There are two schools of thought:
            1. We could have high tech digital signs. However, that may be unrealistic.
            1. Cities could have a schedule of their regulations which is referenced by a sign but not replicated in full. The signage could use language like "priority access for certain uses".
          • Physical signage won't go away but may become more "reference based".
      • Question: How hard is it to convert arbitrary digital curb data to CDS?
        • There is a lot of variance but the most difficult piece is defining the curb geographies.
        • Coding in curb policies has not been difficult so far since they are already limited by the physical size of the sign. Once the policies are defined, it is a one time effort to translate them into CDS.
        • One staffer can code in all the curbs in downtown Oakland in about 8 hours.

Pittsburgh Smart Loading Zones Pilot (Anil Merchant, Automotus and Caroline Seifert, Pittsburgh)

  • Project outcomes
    • Massive increase in e-commerce at the start of the pandemic. Huge demand for curb loading activities.
    • They want to align parking and loading activities with realtime data.
    • They have implemented some short term loading zones for delivery activities.
    • They wanted to decrease parking caused traffic by 20% and double parking by 60%.
    • Ensure curb space is being used equitably and efficiently. Increase turnover.
    • Increase safety
    • Generate parking revenue.
  • The zones and tooling
    • There are 20 loading zones instrumented with cameras and signage.
    • 15 are installed so far.
    • The zones automate payments and data collection.
    • They hope to scale to 150 smart loading zones by the end of the year.
    • Most are near downtown and a specific nearby commercial area (Southside Flats)
    • They have a dashboard that shows turnover, dwell time, and revenue
  • Automated payments
    • Automotus is helping Pittsburgh price the curb.
    • They're using a progressive rate structure that changes more as dwell time increases.
    • They are onboarding commercial vehicles at the fleet level to ensure high usage.
    • Drivers like being charged per minute spent at the curb, rather than paying for time they end up not using.
    • No app is required for each parking session. Just a one time onboarding of license plate and payment source. This reduces friction.
  • What's next?
    • DoE awarded a 3-year grant to Automotus to continue this work specifically to increase safety and incentivize EV adoption.
    • Representing all events as CDS Event objects; using CDS enums for event types
  • Questions
    • How are operators onboarded?
      • One-off agreements.
    • Are curb events processed by their computer vision rather than CDS events?
      • Yes, because fleets are hesitant to jump into sending CDS data.
      • This lets them ease in, providing some data (license plates) while waiting on more detailed data.
    • How did the local businesses receive the introduction of paid parking in loading zones.
      • The reaction has been great, they're excited about better efficiency and turnover.
      • Some businesses were hesitant and they didn't receive loading zones.
    • What about legislation for parking payments?
      • No additional legislation was required for smart loading zones.
    • Was bill by mail already in place? Or did it require additional legislation?
      • It will likely require some state code to be changed. It's complicated.

Closing thoughts (Michael Schnuerle and Marisa Mangan)

  • The OMF Board will vote to approve CDS 1.0 this afternoon
    • There is one conversation to have about whether Metrics API should be private or public.
    • We will give an update following the meeting.
  • Reach out if you want to be added as a CDS user or have any other questions or thoughts
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