Coffee with a Researcher 3: The Curb in an Evolving Mobility Landscape (Text Version)

This is a text version of the video for Coffee with a Researcher 3: The Curb in an Evolving Mobility Landscape presented on March 23, 2023.

JOANNA ALLERHAND: Thanks, Cass. Hi, everyone. My name is Joanna Allerhand from the National Renewable Energy Lab. And I'm filling in today for Lauren Reichelt.
Thank you for joining us for the third webinar in this EEMS Coffee With A Researcher webinar series. This series is part of a larger effort to better connect the Department of Energy EEMS Research with Clean Cities coalitions and technology integration. We want to open lines of communication between coalitions, their stakeholders, and researchers working on EEMS efforts at DOE.
These sessions will highlight available EEMS' tools, and insights, and help coalition directors identify local, and regional partners, and projects that might benefit from these capabilities. We want these sessions to be conversational, and provide an opportunity for EEMS' researchers to ask for input from coalitions, and for coalitions to engage with EEMS researchers. Clean Cities coalitions are in a unique position to describe the mobility priorities and challenges in their communities, which researchers can use to enhance their work.
We all have ample time for discussion. So please collect questions throughout the presentation, ideas for how this might apply to your work, or even how this work could be improved in future iterations to be more applicable to community needs. Next slide, Cass.
I also want to share some additional efforts to connect Clean Cities with EEMS. We will be sending Clean Cities directors to doughs annual merit review in June to gather insights on EEMS deployment, and better understand the opportunities, and challenges coalitions face around EEMS projects. If you are interested in being part of that group, please reach out to Lauren Reichelt at NREL, and she can get you set up.
And we are gearing up to launch an updated EMMS' web page on the Clean Cities website that will include more deployment-focused, educational materials, and resources. There will be an EEMS brochure to share with your stakeholders, a Clean Cities university course, an informational resource on how to start partnering on EEMS projects, and a model presentation about EEMS. Those materials should be published soon for coalition use. Next slide.
And before we get started today, we want to get a sense of who is in the room with us. We have a quick poll here to set the stage. Please share whether you are with a Clean Cities coalition, a National Lab, a local government, or another organization.
A few minutes for you all to respond. Another couple of seconds. I'll go ahead and share the results, Cass.
Awesome. So it looks like we're about half Clean Cities coalitions. Some other. So yeah, if you're in that other category, go ahead, and type what that other is in the chat. GM. Awesome. Welcome. Great. Thank you.
And with that, I will introduce today's researcher, Dr. Alejandro Henao. Alejandro is a research scientist with the Center for Integrated Mobility Sciences at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He is a noted expert in research associated with ride sourcing, for example, Uber, and his current research focuses on optimization of emerging modes, and future mobility, curb management, and performance metrics for mobility and energy efficiency. Thanks so much for being here with us today, Alejandro. I will pass the baton to you.
ALEJANDRO HENAO: Thank you. Let me share my slides. OK. Here we go. So I really like the title because it's Coffee With Our Researcher. I'm originally from Colombia so I love coffee. So when Cass and their group invited me to do this webinar, really, really excited to be talking about this topic.
So I usually cover a lot. But I think throughout the presentation, they will be some prompt for questions, and thinking about what we're doing, and where we're going, and how we can collaborate, or the information that is here hopefully is useful for you to think about either the Clean Cities coalition, or your organization to be thinking about some changes that are currently happening, and how we can think about managing the curb in terms of moving forward.
And so I usually like to start with the background on. So I did the PhD at the University of Colorado, and it was a multidisciplinary program, where it was framing civil engineering in transportation. But we did a lot of studies on policies and behavioral.
So we a lot of times think of civil unions as infrastructure, and building a step. But at the end of the day, cities are complex systems, but they are made out of people. So more and more, we're trying to do research into the behavioral. So how we are interacting with our infrastructure, how we can move along in terms of managing the curb, or the assets in transportation to try to achieve some specific goals.
I did my dissertation into studying the impacts of researching. So Uber and Lyft in transportation, in general. One chapter my dissertation one specifically on parking. And that's where the curb management, and understanding the trips ends, and start at the curb most of the time for those type of trips, or even at the airport.
So there's a lot of changes currently happening at the curb. And when I mean by the curb in the space, mostly in cities or like think of the downtown area, where you normally have that space allocated for parking private vehicles, or maybe a bus stop here and there. Maybe the loading and unloading for freight.
But with today's emerging modes such as Uber and Lyft, and micro-mobility, so thinking about bikes, and scooters, we really have to be thinking about redesigning or repurposing the curb, and how to manage the curb.
So again, this is a couple of the publications from the PhD. But one that I want to highlight, and if you want to find now more about, in general, for these services, and some of the good, the bad, and they're known, which nowadays we're thinking more into on demand services.
But in the good side part of things is there's a need or less need to have so much parking, especially in cities, and thinking about restructuring that landscape. So again, that's what trigger for me to dig a little deeper into this area of research.
So again, looking at all over the US cities. And maybe you can think of your own cities and the Clean Cities coalitions that are part of the city that you're looking at, how much parking there is, and different type of parking even in the curb, or in parks, or infrastructure also for charging for it. All over again very focused on the vehicle.
So we're moving from that very vehicle-oriented private parking to the bikes parking here and there. Different opportunities to put some on demand services, or biking, or even restaurant use, so space for public use.
And this is all over the world too. So there's taxis. This is in Seattle area near where I live that there's also zones for taxis. And again, TNCs and pick up, and drop off.
We sometimes have experienced is a little bit chaotic in airports. This is at the Denver Airport a couple of years ago. This is another airport in Dallas. And each airport has a different way to manage or trying to allocate space, or send people to a specific location.
So again, a lot is happening in terms of the curb, especially because the use and the demand of different services are coming into place. So again, several modes, several uses. And all of these modes have implications, in general, for transportation, energy use that is important for us, or environmental impacts, economic impacts, and so on.
So what is the issue is the fight for the curb as the tragedy of the commons. For those of you that are not familiar with tragedy of the commons is when you have an asset that is no market price or free, then you're going to have a lot of demand, or people wanting that space. So then there's going to be chaotic, and then you're not going to be manage that asset very well.
So what's happening is now, we're having an increase in demand from our traditional modes to additional micro-mobility, ride hailing, and then freight, or micro freight. So think of Uber Eats, or DoorDash, or those type of services that even with the pandemic was give it even more attention. So we were experiencing this even before the pandemic started. But then with the pandemic, it also played a role into it.
And if there's some terminology that you're not familiar with, please feel free to place it in the chat. We will try to clarify as we go. Cass, feel free to interrupt me at any moment if there's some clarification, questions, or something that I should stop, or take a pause.
So again, in many scenarios, there is the free or low cost of the curb use. For some of us that have a study parking for a long time, there is the famous researcher on shoot from UCLA that has a book called The High Cost of Free Parking. So again, it speaks of the same language. Now, we're talking about the curb.
And then we have curb utilization from less efficient modes. So efficiency in terms of moving people, or efficiency in terms of the type of vehicles that are being used. So single passenger in high, or low end MPG, or high fuel use, especially with now with ride hailing taxis.
I don't want to get into the details of what the research tells us and right hell because some of the vehicles are more efficient than the general population. But at the same time, the average vehicle occupancy on those vehicles is even lower than single passengers car use because of the deadheading, which is when drivers go around before and after they pick up a passenger.
And sometimes, we have a lack of prioritization for more efficient modes. It's just transit, high occupancy vehicles, micro-mobility on electric vehicles is changing a little bit in some areas. And we are starting to work with some CDs in how to improve, or how to measure, or how to shift things a little bit. But still, the general is we're not buying the stuff, or maybe we should be.
So let's take a pause here now that I have introduce the topic with this question for the audience. So now that you understand what I will be maybe talking about, and you have an idea of what I'm referring with the curb, we bring it to you, and at least start answering the question in terms of your own Clean City coalition, your area that you deal with. Think about what is the biggest issue with the curb that you've heard of, or experience about in your community.
So I can read here. The curb availability, that's maybe something that you hear in your series, always busy, or there's limited space for users other than parking. So maybe you don't drive, or you bike. But then you have a [INAUDIBLE]. I don't know.
The pricing is either too high or too low. Sometimes they complain we get depending on where you are. Double parking is some issue or safety, that we're considering. The curb is messy sometimes with the scooters we introduce.
Some people fail. Some cities are feeling like, hey, this is all over. We need to give it a more organization.
This organization might be confusing. You don't understand or you go to a different city, and you don't understand that. Or any other that you probably have, and want to type in the chat. So let's see.
This is very exciting and interesting to me. So hopefully we'll be recording some of these. So we have the curb availability always busy as a top one. And then limited space for users or parking.
So it's interesting because in some ways– so I'm curious for those that are response curb availability, they always busy is it you're thinking as a driver, or that you're thinking that that's what the general public says. I'm curious to see how the first and second are related.
So curb availability and limited space for other parking. So maybe let's see if there's– I think there's something on the chat. So Cassandra, you want to monitor a little bit or–
CASSANDRA: Sure. Yeah. Let's see. We have a sense of entitlement, re parking, and curb space, difficulty accommodating innovative uses. Curb space isn't valued for dynamic use.
Single use or single occupancy vehicle parking is prioritized over everything else. Safety of the curb is another important issue, especially in terms of people getting in or out of shared vehicles, and mixed use issues. And then one more.
Depending on the context be that airport, city, or town center, suburban context, fluctuations, and costs in a lot of different contexts, as well as a relatively inefficient parking arrangement in a lot of cases. Little regard for mass transportation as well.
ALEJANDRO HENAO: I really like the comments. And keep the chat going. I think I'm going to have maybe touch on a couple of these.
When we did a study a couple years ago in with cities about– so these are actually municipalities across the country mid-sized cities that usually manage parking. We were curious about how they were shifting from the managed parking to curb use management.
And I think for a lot of the experiences has been that parking is such a entitlement, like, hey, this is parking. That should be for parking. And there's usually outreach from the public if the city, or whoever was managing was trying to reallocate that space for other uses being bike lanes, or parking for bike lanes, or giving it to restaurants, or something else.
But one really interesting thing was when Uber and Lyft came into place, and they started getting super popular at their peak before the pandemic, some cities had start to do some allocation of space for TNCs. And they were surprised that they weren't the same outreach that it was for others. So it is, in some sense, an opportunity to try to reallocate space.
But I hear the feedback that I've seen on the chat that is very similar to what we heard from other municipalities and managers of the curb. So one other comment here about the car spaces is in value for dynamic use is of parking and stereotypes over else. I think what we, and this is the topic that I will be introducing next, is thinking in terms of metrics. So what does the city, or the coalition, or the citizens value in terms of different metrics.
So we'll go into that next. To safety is super important. When we are trying with some of the current projects, safety comes into one of the top ones in terms of the parking, and people getting in and out, or where to get on and off. And a lot of times, we're hearing is the immediate need, the urgency of changing the curb, or managing the curb for dirty media.
So we're trying to also balance this. In the long-term, what do you want to achieve. And I totally agree to that depending on the context, because some airports are more expensive than others, or downtown area. So we're trying to keep that into consideration.
And then I think there is just one additional comment are too many competing uses for the curb in San Francisco. So the transit outdoor eating now permit parking. So thank you for all of the answers, and the comments. I think this is part of how we want to run this presentation. Let's move on.
So some of the research that we started doing a couple of years ago, especially shifting from being very detailed, and doing research on Uber and Lyft, and understanding that many trips are going to the airport, we decided to did some tracking of how people are getting to and from the airport based on transactions, and money that the airports were obtaining based on the different modes that we're getting there.
So what you see on the graph here at the bottom right is that Stance was becoming more popular. A lot of the other modes were really shrinking. So again, this we try to think of an opportunity to think about the curb and the space for better uses.
Again, this is another report that we had in terms of after the introduction of Uber and Lyft in airports, the parking revenue was speaking. And then from that point, it went down when we're talking about in parking revenue per passenger.
And then, again, this has implications for infrastructure at the airports, and policies around the use, and allocation of space. And even nowadays a lot of conversations around electrification, infrastructure, even infrastructure. So vehicles can charge maybe when they're away, or if there is downtime for TNCs.
So again, a lot of changes happening. Again, this was all before the pandemic. But we're trying to maybe get some additional data now that we're into a new norm, and see how that playing out more recently.
Let me start giving some structure to the framework that we're using in some of the projects that we're involved. So this look into four different pillars. So one is metrics. So thinking about performance metrics.
So a lot of times is we talk about curb management. But what are we managing for? What is it that we're trying to achieve? As a city, as a society, as a coalition?
Then trying to think about the data. So what data is being collected, or what data needs to be collected in order to calculate those metrics. Then we go into the research.
And the research is more about, hey, are we doing these on a [? model-end ?] scenarios or in the real-world? And then think of interventions, or ideas that we can move us forward in terms of improving those metrics.
So let me start with the metrics. This is performance metrics to evaluate and reach goals. There's going to be different aims. We just talk about safety, or emissions, or energy efficiency, economics.
Nowadays, there's a lot of attention in equity, especially at the Department of Energy, where we're putting a lot of emphasis on that, and we are starting to measure it. One thing that we are at the lab in the group we work with is metrics is focusing more on people on goods, goods and access, not just vehicles.
We have published a couple of papers now, I'll show in a minute. And then things that provide more societal benefits. And it's just going to be on the context specific on each correlation deciding like what do you value the most between all of these metrics, and what is it that you want to achieve.
One term that I also want to consider when we're talking about these is the dynamic. So it's not the same talking in the middle of the day, or people going to work, or people going out to eat, or nightlife, or in the weekend, or for a sporting event, or for freight delivering goods at the middle of the night. So there is a component of being this dynamic that can also help us with the performance metrics.
So I'm going to throw a couple of different metrics, themes, and objectives. I didn't go into detail. So this has different components.
The idea is to define it. So to do a team, do an objective, define it, and then actually, do a formula, or calculation, so you can get data, and actually get a number. But in general terms, this is how we're looking at.
You can have metrics in terms of environmental. So how can you be reducing the greenhouse gas emission for some things that occur? How do you provide more energy efficiency?
So this, again, is environmental. It can be not as simple, but like as an intervention could be increase the energy vehicle use, or curb allocation of electric vehicles, and infrastructure for charging EVs. Shifting somebody from a regular car to an electric vehicle is bigger than just the curb.
But there are elements that we can help to move that. And if we're doing that, we're improving the energy efficiency. Or if we're moving three people, or giving priority at the curb for the two [? plots, ?] or the bus to move more people, then we are also improving efficiency in terms of when we're measuring no per vehicle basis, but per passenger basis.
So again, there is the health and safety, which somebody just mentioned this, is an important one. There is the economy. So in terms of productivity of the curb. So if somebody is using it because is to deliver goods to this store, or is for somebody to come and work, those provide some revenue generation for the CDU, or for the area, or is providing some vitality in terms of economic, or business, or even customer experience.
I think some of the research tell us that people are willing to pay more for parking as long as these an easy experience. And not just need to park there. Does it matter if I'm going to be there 5 minutes or 25 minutes? But as long as I'm it's easy, and I just don't worry about it, I just going to be charged depending on that.
But then we also have teams in terms of equity. Are we providing some infrastructure that is delivered in an equitable matter? Are we providing curb for transit, or AV accessing underserved communities?
And, again, these are just teams and objectives that are current [? develop. ?] We're framing to three different cities that for a project we're working on. But in general, you get this sense.
What do I mean by more being human center metrics? And this is an example of graphically showing if we are look let's say the same amount of space for different modes. So let's say we allocate for buses the blue, for bike and walk on the green, for car and taxis, the same amount of space. Then we can see how much we can fill out the stadium based on the amount of averages in the US that you can move people with.
But that's not reality, right? We don't allocate spaces promote in a similar manner. But what we wanted to show here in the bottom left graphic is that the blue is when we measure vehicles. So here, it's only comparing the private vehicles in blue, and the transit bus in blue.
So if we're measuring the number of vehicles per hour per lane, we're saying that normally the private vehicle is more efficient. So we're moving more vehicles per lane per hour compared to transit buses. But if we start measuring that in terms of people, which is what we want to do, this is the distribution of how much it changes.
We're moving a lot more people in a transit bus enough per hour per lane basics with national averages than what we're moving in private vehicles. And then we can also show how we can move people biking and walking in terms of efficiency. Of course, is not blue for walking and biking because we're no measuring. And we're only measuring vehicles.
So again, we start doing, or we want to do a similar analogy with the curb because then normally, our engineers you should think in terms of vehicles. So in a day, 4x feet of space, we usually serve 50. This is an example. So 50 private cars to park. 80 TNC. So that's transportation. They were companies like Uber and Lyft on 30 buses.
Oh, we're being efficient, or we can compare them. And we're looking at 50 private cars on 80 TNCs. Those are high numbers compared to the buses.
But then when we start looking at these in a different sense, and actually measuring human-oriented more people, then in a day, we these x amount of feet of space also are serving. These many drivers, these many passengers, and these many bus passengers.
So again, when the metric is based on humans, we have completely different picture than if we're just measuring vehicles. These are, again, just an examples. But that's also what we're trying to do in terms of setting up the metrics, collecting the data for it, and then measuring it.
A lot of times, it's hard because we don't do a very good job in terms of calculating the vehicle occupancy. But again, is because– and I'm a civil engineer. So I'm part of the things that we have to be changing the frame of thinking, and not just vehicles, but our sub people.
So let's make another pass here, second question out of the three questions that we have throughout the presentation. So the question is, what do you think the poor management priorities should be in your community? Again, these are just very more general topic teams, and no necessarily specific to an objective, or a metric, or a formula definition.
But thinking about your coalition, or your entity, or the work you do, or where you live, what do you think the curb management should prioritize in these different areas? So we just throw economy, environmental equity, health and safety, and then other.
A lot of these, we define based on the sustainability [? 3Es. ?] But we know that there is more than that. So this is how we should break it, and having the conversation with others.
So again, feel free to answer out of these. If you have another, please type it, and then maybe we have a discussion chat. And then I'll let Cassandra and Joanna monitor.
CASSANDRA: Alejandro, it looks like we do have one question in the chat. Kathleen is asking, she says, I'm not clear why one would have to choose we're going to be working on this, and frankly, are likely to emphasize all the co-benefits.
ALEJANDRO HENAO: That's a great question. So part of the reason we took it– very interesting. This is the top priority. And we just want the conversation going.
I do believe that the way we are doing it in our project is we're putting it all of them, we're forcing of 100 apples, or 100% weight. How do you distribute among them? What we're trying to avoid is the saying of like, we want everything help us do with everything.
Part of the issue we don't want that. And it's OK if you have 100 points, and you want to distribute it equally to among all of them. That's OK. But what we want to force a conversation is that a lot of times, these metric are conflicting factors.
So if you prioritize for something, some other is going to hurt. So we kind of want to give it some structure, or trying to think about how do we weight all of the different options to really optimize for that.
Because when we get into, it just more helpful in terms of moving from setting up the metrics, getting the collection of the data, and then optimizing the curb use, and policies, and everything else for it. We want to know what are we optimizing for.
And again, we want to avoid the conversation of, we want to optimize it for everything. I mean, again, if you want to give it an equal weight, then that's fine.
But for the exercise here, which is triggered that question. And I agree with you. It's just shouldn't be just one. It should be several of them.
But I think, and this is again my personal opinion is, of those four, I'll give it some percentages. But they're not going to be equally. So some I believe maybe should be way more than others.
And also, understanding what are the dynamics between them. So if you're going to improve the environment, then it also improve these and that, but it also hurts you. So again, there's a lot of dynamics.
We're starting to or ideas to start the conversation about– on the research about how one affects the other one. But I think some of the answers here is a reflection of that same question. It's not just one thing, and that's what you want.
Also, I think there's different stakeholders. There's different point of views. And we're also trying to see if maybe from the civic perspective, there is consistency among the people answering, and how much you weigh those, versus maybe the industry or private, versus the general users of the curb.
So again, thanks for the question or the comment. I think that's part of what we wanted to trigger these questions, or these presentation around.
CASSANDRA: There are just a couple more comments in the chat, Alejandro. I don't know if you're able to see them. But talking about getting a curb system, a curb management system in place compared to managing the curb, and in general, in a more systemic way.
And then Jesse said, I think the need is for curb management to adapt dynamically. To your point, you can't split the curb equally for everyone. So it seems the problem is how to accommodate needs as they arise.
ALEJANDRO HENAO: Yeah. Great comment. So as we were talking about, and this is what our research shows originally. I think I'm going to present some, or have a couple of slides on these in a moment.
But I think the more dynamic you make it, the higher optimization you achieve. But there is a point of can make it so dynamic that it makes so confusing. And that's part of the issue as well.
Like OK, we can make it dynamically every five minutes. But we know in reality, that's impossible. So we have to be weighting on. Of all of these, what is it that we want to achieve in general in terms of these optimization and formulas?
And then if we're going to make it dynamic, how dynamic we make it? I think there's a minimal threshold that cities are willing to, or not city, but also the citizen at the end of the day are the ones that are using it. And you want to know or be clear on, I'm going to go to this place, and at this time, I know I can park, or I can use a TNC, or that someone is not available because freight is going to be using that zone.
So let me go to through the next slides. And hopefully, that will give us more clarity into how the research can be helping with all of these questions. But again, great comments, great questions, great engagement, and conversation. And this is what we usually try to achieve.
So before I jump into more of the research, the data, we know the infrastructure that has been in cities, now, we're moving into app based. We should think of two sets of data. One is the digitalization of the cities.
So thinking about what cities have in place. There's a couple of companies that do this in terms of knowing what is there. And then more into the demand side of things. So how is it being used.
We partner with some of these companies in terms of doing research, getting data, and doing some analysis. But I want to give you a sense of data and technology, how we are thinking about this, and measure it. This is an example for one of the projects that we're getting speed and volume data for this study. And then allow us to do some of the analysis.
So now, moving into the research part, the modeling is we starting the theoretical side of things, and do some computerization of finding the highest utility based on these metrics, and quantifying what you are trying to achieve to more even empirical, right? So we're actually measuring, seeing how things are, and then we do an intervention in terms of, let's say, putting a zero emission zone, or some policy, or some pricing change. And then we can measure the change after.
In this case, in the right, is looking at maybe the number of electric vehicles that are parking of the curb. We're not saying that influenced the big shift of EV, but it helps make sure some of the things that are happening in the curb.
So we started these, again, about four or five years ago, where we started looking at– we have a couple of publications in this regard, where we interview a lot of municipalities, and understanding the changes. And then we set up a framework for optimal location of the curb between movement through, or parking for just two to three modes.
Then we look at more recently two years ago, with [? PNNL ?] on a couple of their research partners to look at specifically at some areas in the Seattle downtown, and using some where are the types of things happening, and again, make it a little bit dynamic, and then start unconstrained so like OK, if we assign a space for these other modes, how much will that change into the fuel utility and changing that in a very short time period?
So this is where we start gaining things. Well, one thing is the model. One thing is in the real world. Another thing is what is possible by the coalitions, or the cities in terms of it can be done.
So one example is a lot of times, if you have more buses, and more buses location, is what it gives us the highest utility. But we know that that's not the case. So there's going to be some constraining around. You only have to have this amount of space allocated for that, or there is a maximum, or a minimum threshold. There is also a minimum maximal threshold of how dynamic you can make it.
So I'm not going to go into the details of the research. But the idea that we're exploring, and trying to do is, hey, there are things that can be done. One is space allocation, unconstrained, or constrained, and making that dynamic or not, and then you start getting some results in terms of how you're moving forward.
I'm going to skip through some of these because this gets more into the theory how the research was framed. But in general, this is how we define it. For that example, we use three kinds of metrics. So we did economic welfare, we did revenue, and we did emissions. So we did it in the case that we weight all of three the same.
But then, again, this is where it will be interesting is to know how much will you all be willing to weight the three the same, or will you give a little bit more to one over the other. And based on that simple answer, the result is different. So I think that's why it's very important to set up some metrics, and weight on those metrics in order to optimize the model.
This is what I was trying to explain in regards to unconstrained optimization with a lot specific mode. We'll get a lot more, in this case, was commercial vehicle loading. The Amazon somewhere there.
But then once you start constraining it, then it will be a different solution. And once you start setting limits in the dynamic piece, you also get different results, and how much you weight on those metrics. This is bringing everything to terms to a number. So we use utility. But you also in order to compare one metric versus the other, you either have to normalize that, or you either have to bring everything to dollars, or utility levels.
What I want to close it out, or finish the presentation was giving it a little bit more of the recent project that we're working on, and these more into the grounds and real world. So this is a research partners. [? Lacy's ?] is the prime in this project. They're leading the project. But we're like the research coordinator among other labs, and universities. And [INAUDIBLE] is a big– the data provider for this project.
The frame of this project is to accelerate the adoption of zero emissions, and then measuring the key outcomes of the deliverable. So there some of the outcomes that we are trying to achieve, and our measuring to do that. This is a previous slide that you saw into trying to measure before and after based on some of the interventions that are happening in some of those locations.
And then we're getting into some of the example interventions. One is reallocation of space. One is changing the price of the curb use, another one is monitoring and enforcements, another as in communication. This is just to give you some examples of some of the things that we're thinking about, or what the cities partners are allowing us to do.
So this is in LA Santa Monica and Pittsburgh. And they each have different ways of data, measuring things, policies, and what they can do and can not do. So we're trying to do some research coordination to be able to do that.
We're in the process of setting up a survey. And we would like you to participate. We end up doing these in terms of, again, at a team level trying to select some, and then going into more detail.
And then from this, then we're going to have to identify some interventions. We know so many the arrangements are difficult to implement. So others are maybe a lower hanging fruit.
And then we also want to know how much influence have those interventions in the outcomes you want to achieve. So let's finish with this question in terms of what do you think your city should be doing in terms of interventions to better manage the curb.
And again, they might be more than one. But we just for the sake of the conversation, and the exercise. We're making you choose one for right now.
And the options are reallocation of curb space, pricing, technology, signage and communication, monitoring and enforcement, or other. And feel free to put it in the chat.
And I'm starting to read the comments. And yes, I agree that gravitation also depends on the specific areas of a given Metropolitan areas as well. I completely agree. And that's something that we're experiencing.
It varies by city. It varies by where you're talking about. But we have to start a conversation somewhere, and looking at the bigger picture. A lot of times with cities, and the feedback we're getting is it's really hard to say we're going to do this here, and do that there.
First, they want to maybe set up a general policy or rule. And then from that moment, you start adapting. But agree, and just simply make the comment. And maybe prioritizing depends on the specific areas of a given Metropolitan area as well.
So we have some results here. And I see a relocation of curb space as a top one. Technology second one, the far behind. So this is the first one, I look at have a clear answer. Very interesting.
So let me go through the last few slides. And maybe we open it if we have more comments or questions. This is some visualization if we get the survey results, and building on previous comments and conversation about, hey, these are all of the different metrics. Maybe some sites will rent some other than the others. We can slice these by the type of expertise, or industry you work in.
This is more of what I was talking about like, there so many arrangements that are really difficult, or some of the easier ones, and then the impact of the intervention. So the idea will be to focus in on those that might be not as difficult, or low-hanging fruit, but then make a big impact. And then the harder, or the least priority will be those ones that are really hard to implement. But we think there is a low impact in the big team.
In terms of final thoughts, I will say, continue or thinking to focus on the movement of people and goods, not just vehicles. There is a lot of prioritization that will happen and incentives, not use time and costs.
I usually say like, get creative. I think there's a lot of ways to be creative, and finding out what works best for your jurisdiction, or even in airports like for airports. I know there is a lot of legal, or policy concerns. But I think there's opportunities to be creative, or innovative, especially with technology, pilots, and so on.
And again, the other area that I would think is very important is the mobility behavior economics. And if we do optimization research and research management, we can also do some mobility behavior incentives, or are we influencing that. So there's a lot to study there, and try to move the needle further.
Modes that allow to move more people and goods in a per time per area use. Higher vehicle occupancy, lower energy consumption. We are talking a lot about vehicles, again, more societal benefits using optimization.
And we have talked about this on some of the comments to have been dynamic to allow to accommodate special circumstances throughout the day, or even what we experience with COVID. So again, this is like the framework. Be creative, innovative.
You can have a sign that says these first five minutes is free. You're starting increasing as things move along. And we have seen the research that even signs like that, we just change behavioral. And you can do pricing based on electric vehicles, or efficiency of the vehicles, high occupancy vehicle, or things that make us move in the right direction for those metrics.
I will pass it to Cassandra or Joanna. I think we have a few minutes. But we have been talking during the conversation. So hopefully, people are participating wanted to have some.
JOANNA ALLERHAND: Yup. Thank you so much. This is wonderful. We have a question from Garrick. What kind of charging scenarios can help with curb monetization in a meaningful way? [? Scene ?] poll chargers, but they are very slow and low rate of charge.
ALEJANDRO HENAO: So that's a good question. I think for the dwindling time or the time of parking, it has to match the rate of charging that you're going to be in the curb for. So I think with the charging scenarios and optimization, I think it has to be fast-charging. But also depending on the area.
One thing that we discuss here is like, hey, it's not the same parking downtown, where the dwelling time average might be 20 to 40 minutes, versus parking an airport that is several hours. So I think matching the type of charging with the charging infrastructure is key to that.
And in electricity in parking, the interesting piece is that you should charge more the longer you park, versus normally in any binding goods. The more goods you buy, the cheaper it is. In a utility is it plays out a little different.
But I'm not an economic person. So that maybe. I'm not be the perfect person to answer that question. But it's a good question, and good to have those discussions among the other one.
CASSANDRA: One more question. Also, who are the curb managers? Civic planners, engineers, politicians, or a combination of all or more?
ALEJANDRO HENAO: Yeah. I think when we usually talk about curb managers is a municipality or city will have a department specific to manage the infrastructure that occur. So a lot of times, use the parking enforcement, or it's been changing now to have full curb departments.
So to give you an example, the city of Denver has now a curb management team. So we used to talk about that team. But they also it's not just them. It's not just the city. I mean there's engineers in that group, there is planners in that group. And sometimes they have to respond to some politicians. But at the end of the day, it's the citizens who speak about how do we want to manage the curb.
JOANNA ALLERHAND: Thank you. Any last questions? We got about one minute left. And as Cass mentioned, the recording will be posted on the Clean City's website. So you can revisit it then as well, or share with your friends.
Question from Jesse. What can local, state, federal governance do to encourage development of new forms of sustainable, equitable, mobility? Perhaps there are different formats, or types of mobility that are not here yet like trackless trams. How might we encourage innovating new categories?
ALEJANDRO HENAO: That's a good one I mean, the thing is like, a lot of times, I think this question is bigger than the topic maybe we're talking about here in terms of curb management. But I feel like it also applies in general maybe the way the question is being framed. Back to the metrics, if we really understand better what we want to achieve in terms of metrics, I mean, again, sustainability and equity is just one thing.
But going to more details, and how that affect, the other things that traditionally we care more about, or actually, we're measuring in terms of economics, or environmental, so I think is I will always frame it back to the metrics, and setting up the right metrics to be able to do that development. That hey, if you do this development, then you will be improving these metrics.
And these other metrics won't be affected as much, or they will be affected by this much. So that's where you have to wait all of those. Because we don't need to shift to a single thing. But it's just looking at a bigger picture. That will be my short answer. But I think this is the great answer that requires a lot of conversation and discussion.
JOANNA ALLERHAND: Thank you. Unfortunately, we are out of time. Thank you to Alejandro, and everyone who is able to join us this afternoon, and have a great rest of your days.
ALEJANDRO HENAO: Thank you.
JOANNA ALLERHAND: All right. By-bye.