Dive Brief:
- Mobility data company Coord is adding five new cities to its curb data platform: Austin, TX; Miami; Philadelphia; San Diego and Washington, DC. The expansion is part of the company’s goal to offer data on more than 100 global cities by 2021.
- The cities will have access to Coord API, which offers detailed information on the permitted uses of curb space, and Coord Toolkit, which contains visualization and data collecting tools like the Surveyor augmented reality app.
- To build out data for the new cities, Coord and its partners surveyed more than 500 miles of curb and cataloged 80,000 curb assets, including driveways, curb cuts, fire hydrants and signs.
Dive Insight:
New mobility options and an increase in e-commerce deliveries have ramped up competition for limited curb space. At the same time, many cities don’t have a reliable account of all of the assets on sidewalks, or the parking and loitering rules that govern curbs. Coord, which is backed by Google parent company Alphabet, looks to fill that gap. Users can snap pictures or record information through the Surveyor app, and then it is collected on various platforms.
Coord makes the information available in both raw data and visual form to partner cities, to help them clear up congestion and set better rules governing ride-hailing pickup and drop-off zones or micromobility parking. Founders also see the information as valuable for delivery companies or ride-hailing companies to know where they are allowed to stop.
Coord’s tools were previously only available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Seattle, but the expansion signals that Coord is serious about spreading across the globe. Getting into new cities does require some leg work; for example, Coord and engineering firm Kimley-Horn covered 161 curb miles just to catalog information for Miami and Miami Beach, FL.
The labor required has kept many cities from doing the kind of full census that Coord offers, although some have embarked on their own projects. Startups like Mapillary have sought to digitize parking sign and curb information in a bid to help cities manage that information. Others are looking at ways to clear up congestion, like a collaborative pilot among Charlotte, NC, Detroit and Omaha, NE to charge for scooters and bikes to take up curb space. Others have done sidewalk surveys to help the disabled community better navigate cities.
