San Francisco launches effort toward real-time API for curb, parking data

If you drive and park in San Francisco, you know curb space is in high demand with limited supply.

That’s why the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is working on a project called the Digital Curb Program that will provide the public a complete picture, in real time, of each curb asset and its associated regulations. While the agency said they do have “highly detailed digital records” of most parking and curb regulations that they update frequently, the data sets are stored separately and “readily do not communicate with each other.”

The City’s Director of Transportation Jeffrey Tumlin said in a statement that the program will help the agency modernize how they manage curbside parking and loading spaces:

“We can’t manage what we can’t measure. With better digital tools, we can direct all motorists to the closest available space – including ridehail, delivery and autonomous vehicles. We hope the result will be better convenience and less double-parking.”

SFMTA spokesperson Stephen Chun said the agency will make the curb space information publicly available on a web map and through an API, or application programming interface, which he said will allow anyone, including the private sector, to easily retrieve the information for use in existing or new applications.

Initial funding for the curb program will come from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced last month the first round of grants from the Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation grant program. The SMART grants are part of President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The SFMTA received nearly $2 million ($1,999,607) from the grant program and will use the funding to complete an inventory of all of The City’s curbside parking and loading spaces, and setting up ways to keep the curb program up to date, Chun said:

“SFMTA anticipates using the completed digital curb inventory as a foundation for a future grant application to fund the implementation of digital tools for managing curb demand.”

Chun said the agency expects to complete its digital curb inventory by 2025.

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority was also a recipient of the federal SMART Grants Program. The VTA received approximately $500,000 for its Wheels on the Bus -RTD — a project to identify ways to provide real-time data to passengers who use mobility devices or bikes to see if there is room for them on an approaching bus and to allow passengers to notify VTA if they need space.

VTA received nearly $1.7 million for another project that seeks to install a connected transit signal priority system for its buses.

More information about the SMART Grants Program can be found on the Department of Transportation website.