Miami-Dade County’s Department of Transportation and Public Works about to take steps to maximize urban space in a pilot program to determine how to best use limited curb space to make more and faster deliveries using vehicles of every type. The pilot program is expected to launch in upcoming weeks.
“This is a SMART (Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation) grant,” said Jarice Rodriguez, interim chief of paratransit operations at the department. “It’s $2 million funded by USDOT (US Department of Transportation). One of the things that were key on this, we have done a lot of innovation in transit services, but we tend, usually, to treat the curb as a completely separate component that doesn’t have a dynamic role within the transportation network, but that’s not right.”
Curbside space and infrastructure have a critical role in the transportation network, she said. They can impact transit, ride-sharing service, vehicle traffic operations, bike lanes, bike traffic, and pedestrian operations.
“Recognizing that,” said Ms. Rodriguez, “we need to start thinking, and we are thinking, how we can properly allocate a space that can facilitate and can make all the overall operations more efficient.”
When talking about allocating space, Ms. Rodriguez said she’s referring to things such as how to decide where loading zones are needed, how much space should be provided, and allocating Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ramps.
“You also need to provide a space for parking,” she said, “but you also need a space for bikes, for scooters, for any other emerging mode of transportation that comes into play. We have been doing a lot for that. At this moment, nobody has a complete idea or solution on how we can make the process of curbside management smarter and more inclusive. This project – and we are not the only ones – we are 10 cities in a collaboration from the first round of the SMART project, working on similar ideas related to curbside management.”
What the department is working on with the program, said Ms. Rodriguez, is “proving how feasible is a technology solution, a combination of technology that is proven but not widely adopted, and to see if technology is feasible to deploy this and have enabled a smarter and more inclusive and efficient public space management system; in other words, how we make the curbs smarter.”
She said the department has pinpointed 26 loading zones locations across Brickell and downtown, but mostly in the downtown area, and is using technology to convert the zones into smart loading zones.
“This project has three main components: of course, the technology that will make this loading zone smart,” said Ms. Rodriguez. “We have the engineering pavement markings and signage designs that we need to have in place…. What are the colors that we need to use or design, how we convey the message and identify this area, like smart curbs or smart loading zones. And we have the, I will say, the most important one, it’s the community engagement and the on-ground research.”
Work to deploy visual detection systems has begun.
“We identified 26 existing loading zones across downtown and Brickell, and … we have three locations where we already installed the visual detection system that consists of a state-of-the-art camera,” she said. “They are stand-alone solar power cameras. They are not mounted on our traffic signal poles. It’s completely separate, and it’s not taking energy from anything; it’s solar powered. They’re very light, and they have artificial intelligence capability. They’re going to be placed in a way on the curbside that they capture the activity in the loading zones, and what we’re capturing is the occupancy activity.”
Feedback is wanted from businesses, delivery people, companies doing deliveries and individuals using the curb space.
“We are trying to get that feedback from them about what is the demand,” said Ms. Rodriguez, “what do we need, how we can improve this, but also we are informing them about this side, about what is happening and how we are going to be improving the curb.”
Ms. Rodriguez said they want people to be familiar with the cameras and rest assured that no personal data is collected. What is being collected is information such as the type of vehicle using the curb space, how often the type of vehicle is there, and for how long.
The cameras, she said, can distinguish different modes of transportation such as if a vehicle, truck, mid-size truck, bike or scooter is using the space.
“With that information,” said Ms. Rodriguez, “we collect the trends, like at what time of the day this is happening? For how long? Do we have double parking? How often do we have double parking in the loading zone? When this is happening and … what day of the week? That is the only information that we’re capturing now. We are not reading plates or anything like that.”
The department is one of the city founders of the standard data exchange format (SDS), which is what Ms. Rodriguez shared she calls a “universal language” that allows the technology in the curbside to transmit information to a centralized dashboard to exchange information.
Additionally, through this project, she said, the department is testing and establishing the Core Data Specification (CDS) by the Open Mobility Foundation (OMF).
“So at the same time,” said Ms. Rodriguez, “we get the information to CDS, we transmit that information to a platform that we are also developing as part of this project. It’s going to be a data platform for curbside management, meaning we get information, the data, and we leverage or integrate the data with all the layers of information, or database. In order for us to know what’s happening in that curbside, we need the activity on the smart loading zone, but we need to know what happened around; we need to know any traffic safety data.”
This dashboard that’s already developed is now receiving information for the three locations where the cameras are installed, she said. The platform was developed by the company Blue System.
“For the smart curbs to function, she said, they are also working on engineering designs of the pavement and the signage to be used. They’ll test it to understand what works best and if any changes are needed such as the use of different colors or the improvement of the language used. This will help to establish a standard design for the smart loading zone.
The most important aspect, said Ms. Rodriguez, is gathering information from the community. An operating website talks about the smart curb program and has three surveys to collect data about users. This is to understand the perception and the needs.
“So far, we have three locations that we have these cameras on,” she said, “and they’re working. With that transmitting data to our dashboard, that is ready, and what we are doing is calibrating and making sure the data is collected correctly. We do have CDS working.”
“We are finding where that format is not working or needs improvement,” she said, “and this is a collaborative with other cities that we exchange the issues and we have found regarding the CDS format, and we are ready to start also deploying, along with Miami Parking Authority, one of the main partners, the pavement markings and signage. With that, we are hoping in the following weeks, we’re going to be able to fully launch the zone and start collecting data from the community and all the findings about the activity that is happening at the curb.”
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