Curb Simulator

Your curb is the most productive real estate in your city. Smart policy, clear information at the curb, and fair enforcement — together — unlock its value.

Curb management isn’t about parking — it’s about how you allocate the highest-value real estate your city owns. Support every stakeholder (shoppers, residents, deliveries, ADA, transit, emergency) and channel the curb to its highest-value use: primarily the local commerce that keeps the city alive. Add or move one paid turnover per space per day and a 2,000-space downtown picks up tens of millions in annual commerce, sales tax and meter revenue. Most cities — even the sophisticated ones — leave a lot of value on the pavement. Check your city.

Set the levers. Watch the dollars.   Pick a district, set the meter rate and citation fine, then pull the eleven policy levers around the results box. Numbers update live, calibrated against field data from comparable installs and the Curb Productivity Scale.

A. Curb policy

How you allocate curb time across uses, hours and days.

A1. Microzoning

  • ➖ Single use per block face
  • 🧩 Microzoned block faces

A2. Time limits

  • ∞ No time limits
  • 📅 Tight (≤ 2 hr) where appropriate
  • 🎚️ Mixed by zone

A3. Time-of-day / day-of-week

  • 1️⃣ Same rule 24/7
  • 📆 Time-of-day & day-of-week rules

A4. Sweep / rush-hour windows

  • ❎ No sweep / rush windows
  • 🚿 Sweep + rush-hour windows

B. Data behind policy

What you use to set and adjust those rules. Multi-select; sources stack.

  • 🚫 No data
  • 🎲 Guesswork
  • 🎟️ Citation data only
  • 💳 Payment / transaction data only
  • 🏢 Building-composition data
  • 📝 Interns with notepads
  • 📋 One-time occupancy study
  • 💬 Public & merchant feedback
  • 📡 Sensors at every space

C. Wayfinding

How a driver finds an open space without circling.

Wayfinding system

  • ❓ No wayfinding
  • 🗺️ Payment data shown as a map proxy
  • 🧭 Sensor-driven wayfinding on apps / maps

D. Decision info

What a motorist learns at the curb in the 1.5–2 seconds before they commit.

D1. Space-level cue

  • 🎨 Curb paint only
  • ➕ Painted T-marks / line separators
  • 📍 Meter or marker at each space
  • 📺 Real-time guidance display at space
  • 🔁 Per-space dynamic curb-mode indicator

D2. Sign type

  • ❗ Sign just says "payment required"
  • 📜 Sign states rates & times

D3. Sign complexity

  • 📚 Stacked / multi-line sign
  • 📃 Simple single-line sign

D4. Sign distance

  • 🗺️ ≤ 100 ft from space
  • 📏 ≤ 50 ft from space

D5. Sign visibility

  • 🌳 Driver has to hunt for it
  • 👁️ Clearly visible from driver seat

E. Transaction ease

More options & lower friction = higher capture.

E1. Pay-by-app

  • ⛔ No app payment
  • 🔢 Pay-by-app, zone-keyed
  • 📱 Pay-by-app, citywide single zone

E2. Pay-at-meter

  • ⛔ No meter payment
  • 🏧 Pay-at-meter, one kiosk per block
  • 🅿️ Pay-at-meter, single/dual at the space

E3. Payment types accepted

  • 🪙 Coins
  • 💳 Credit / debit (insert)
  • 📲 Tap-and-go (NFC)

Summary Data for Mid-sized City Downtown

  • 2,000 spaces · $2.00/hr · $45 fine · 6% tax
  • Type III — Responsive
  • Annual local commerce: $157.29M
  • Annual meter revenue: $11.16M
  • Annual sales tax: $9.44M
  • Total annual city revenue: $79.28M

Outcome scorecard

  • Compliance: 69%
  • Decision-info: 95/100
  • Wayfinding: 85/100
  • Motorist perception: 68/100

How the math works

Every output above is computed from a transparent model calibrated against field data from comparable installs and the 1.5-second-decision research summarized on our curb-management page.

Citation revenue is small — by design

A well-managed curb generates most of its value in commerce and sales tax, not citations.