Boston invests in curb management tech to improve resident satisfaction
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A new digital payment infrastructure for curb management is helping the city better meet residents’ needs.
The city of Boston has revved up its parking management system in a bid to improve the city’s accessibility and drive more efficient decision-making as officials allocate city resources and services.
Since June, the Boston Transportation Department has been leveraging a modernized digital parking infrastructure through the tech provider Passport. The new platform replaced the city’s 40-year-old system, enabling more streamlined data sharing, improving parking compliance and enhancing service delivery for visitors and businesses in the city.
The cloud-enabled platform allows people to submit mobile payments for parking or permitting, which also provides officials with data visualizations and reporting on metrics like where and when parking transactions occurred or payment compliance rates, said Gene Rohrwasser, chief technology officer of Passport.
Boston completed more than 13,000 constituent-facing services, such as residential permit approvals and citation payments, just three days after the platform’s launch and has processed more than $17 million in payments to date, according to a statement from Passport.
Cities have been exploring methods to get more people back into the community as traffic continues to increase, even years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted people’s commutes and visits to downtown areas, he explained.
“The curb is a pivotal touch point that cities have with their constituents,” Rohrwasser said, adding that a city’s approach to parking and curb management can greatly impact residents’ interaction with the municipality, so it’s important to have a system “that’s highly usable, accessible and intuitive,” he said.
The Passport system, for example, includes “self-service portals, giving residents clearer access to their parking and permit information and making city services more accessible to everyone,” said Amelia Capone, director of parking and curbside management for Boston, in an email to Route Fifty.
“Smarter curbside management means that we can respond to the experiences of our constituents on the ground,” she said.
For instance, Capone explained that “by analyzing violation and appeal data, we’re identifying ways to make parking at Boston curbs easier and clearer — such as updating or adding signage to help drivers understand regulations, and pinpointing violation hotspots to reveal gaps between curb regulations and actual user needs.”
Officials are leveraging data insights from the Passport platform to adapt to Boston’s changing needs, like improving bus stops, providing better delivery or loading spaces for businesses or installing bike lanes across the city, she said. The data could even assist officials in making decisions about where to locate small parks or food truck spaces.
“The curb is where cars, pedestrians, cyclists, and nearby homes, businesses, and restaurants all come together,” Capone said. “By using our curbs thoughtfully, we can make Boston’s streets more efficient, welcoming and enjoyable for all.”