Booking Time & Space

There's very little to innovate in (motor) vehicle parking management and so it's nice to be able to report on something which is both simple and clever at the same time.

I found myself with a bit of spare time the other week and so on a trip into the City of London, I diverted down to the Walworth Road in Southwark for a look at an experimental project which provides on-street dynamic loading space. The project is part of a wider network of loading places across the borough and is being delivered in partnership with Grid Smarter Cities, which deals with the technology side of the operation through its Kerb platform.

The premise is simple really. The idea is that in a busy place like Walworth, kerbside space for loading is at a premium, but despite there being loading bays, they are accessed on a first come, first served basis. This means that should a bay be occupied, then drivers have to find somewhere else or they may end up taking a chance and it's just not efficient. 

Under UK rules, on-street loading cannot be provided for a named business or group of businesses and so this project thinks a little outside the box. The photograph above is one of the bays which was a loading bay, but which has been converted to a permit bay using an experimental traffic order.

The use of the permit bay approach is that they can be issued against a particular vehicle registration for a particular time slot of 15, 30 or 60 minutes. Subject to enforcement, this means that a space should be available as the delivery arrives and so makes things a little more efficient and stress-free for the delivery driver. The photograph above shows an example of a simple permit bay sign which essentially means the bay is there for permit holders at all times.

It's a long way from the days of having to send a form to the council to get a paper permit for the vehicle window because now, the user books their slot online or via an app, and the booking appears on an e-paper display at the bay to show the slot as taken (above). The permit is issued electronically and so long as the registration of the loading vehicle matches, then all is good.

In theory, the e-paper screen isn't really needed because electronic parking management has been around a while. For example, resident parking and pay and display parking can managed by electronic permits which are checked by enforcement staff on a handheld device. However, I like the e-paper screen because it's quite handy to show people when things are booked at a glance. For example, a business owner can get a call from a supplier and nip out to look at bay availability, so it adds a nice layer of customer service.