Kerbside management company Grid Smarter Cities has won the Future of Parking Award at the prestigious British Parking Awards in London.
The company has developed its Kerb® Delivery solution to enable freight drivers to book their kerbside loading slots in advance, meaning no loitering in the carriageway or circling the roads and therefore reducing congestion and making roads safer for local authorities.
Grid Smarter Cities is the first recipient of the Future of Parking Award, and the judges recognised the Kerb® Delivery solution as an innovative approach to planning the provision of parking in the future.
“The kerbside remains the wild west of parking and loading, with the first-come-first served situation leading to unnecessary congestion, pollution and inefficiencies,” commented Grid Smarter Cities Sales and Partnerships Director Toby Hiles, who collected the awards on stage at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel with colleagues from Grid Smarter Cities (pictured). “Our solution, which we’ve successfully implemented first with the forward-thinking London Borough of Southwark, is solving the issue and putting both the local authorities and logistics companies in control. That means authorities take care of their road space and logistics companies of their delivery schedules. We are thrilled the judges recognised the real value Kerb® delivers, especially as we were up against other top-quality ideas.”
The Kerb® solution is being used in a number of London boroughs in both physical bays and also Virtual Loading Bays (VLBs). VLBs are stand-alone digitally-created bays which require no physical signage or infrastructure. They are available at certain times in agreed locations where loading is usually prohibited. This means there operators can load or unload without risking a penalty charge notice.
Grid Smarter Cities has also developed a two-sided e-ink digital sign to go on the kerbside which integrates with the platform to display the booked vehicle’s details – its registration number and time slot.
The National Parking Platform, which is a not-for-profit, open-access digital system for UK parking that aims to provide a single, unified experience for drivers and parking operators, was also a winner at the event.
(Picture – Highways News)
