By Charlotte Robertson
For the past six months, the curb management company, Automotus, monitored parking behavior on the Upper West Side using AI-powered cameras.
The temporary installation of two of the company’s “CurbSight” AI cameras along Broadway between West 74th and 75th streets ended this week, and the pilot’s results are now being analyzed by the New York City Department of Transportation.
The company delivered a presentation at the October 13th Community Board 7 Transportation Committee meeting. Margot Zuckerman, director of growth and strategy, said Automotus’ mission is to optimize public use of the curb and decrease traffic congestion. “I’ll just speak very personally, as a New York City resident. I would love to see commercial deliveries and double parking better managed.”
Automotus’ cameras analyze vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle traffic in real time,” Zuckerman explained. The cameras can simulate loading zones and detect where vehicles park, allowing for an eventual automated payment system that, if adopted, could charge vehicles for time spent at the curb and penalize traffic violations.
During this pilot program, no tickets or fines were issued.
“The curb is one of the most contested and competitive public spaces in the city,” said Andrea Fondulas, a community organizer at StreetopiaUWS, in an interview with West Side Rag. “Automotus is a scalable resource to help solve things like double parking.”
Automotus, which declined an interview with West Side Rag, advertises its “computer vision” — a subfield of artificial intelligence that allows machines to not only capture, but interpret visual data — as first-of-its-kind technology. In effect, Automotus “monetizes” the curb, with its capability to send automated pay-by-the-minute invoices and citation mailings.
The Broadway block between West 74th and 75th streets was chosen for Automotus’ pilot program because of its retail concentration. Home to the Fairway Market flagship, the curb is often crowded with loading vehicles. And since launching “Fairway Now” with Instacart in 2023, which promises grocery delivery in 30 minutes, the presence of delivery cyclists has increased — the city even installed new bike racks in front of the store. The curb is shared with Citarella, which also relies on frequent truck shipments for fresh fish, produce, and meat.
“Everyone on the Upper West Side has had the experience of a grocery truck loading out of a travel lane, because people will just park in the loading zones long term,” said Sara Lind, co-executive director at Open Plans, in an interview with West Side Rag. “Loading zones are not serving the function they’re meant to serve, which camera-based enforcement could fix.”
Automotus’ New York pilot has generated little press since its launch. The company’s press release was not published until August, four months after the cameras had been installed. NYCDOT declined to comment on specific questions related to Automotus, but Press Secretary Vincent Barone pointed out, in an email to West Side Rag, that the city has used computer vision sensors to monitor streets in the past.
In 2023, NYCDOT piloted 12 sensors from VivaCity, which mapped street activity in four boroughs. This past June, they were installed at an additional 80 locations. But, while data collected from VivaCity can be used to reform street safety policy, Automotus can also issue automated pay-by-the-minute invoices and citation mailings.
The city does not yet have authorization to implement Automotus beyond data collection, Lind explained. “Open Plans has an active campaign to try and get that authorization from the state, but it’s slow and difficult getting Albany to act,” she said. The relevant bill, S8665, was introduced to the New York State Senate by Senator Julia Salazar (D, WF) on January 7 of this year, and is under review.
So far, Automotus has partnered with a variety of cities across the United States, reaching across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Kentucky, Nebraska, Florida, and California, among others. Automotus is used differently by different cities, from enforcing bike lane protections, to issuing parking citations, to creating zero-emission curb zones. A case study obtained by West Side Rag about Automotus’ “Smart Loading Zones” in Fort Lee, NJ, reported a 43 percent decline in double-parking after automated billing went into effect.
In her presentation, Zuckerman explained that Automotus’ baseline technology also allows cities to “layer” the use of their curbs throughout the day: “Maybe something is a loading zone in the morning, paid parking during the day, and a residence permit at night.”
With plan variety comes pricing variety, according to Zuckerman. The City pays for Automotus’ hardware and software separately, on a subscription-basis, which changes according to services used.
NYCDOT did not comment on a budget for Automotus.
As for privacy concerns, Automotus claims to be “private by design.” Faces are blurred and only “relevant” license plates are recorded. Everything is processed on the cameras themselves, and data cannot be subpoenaed, as footage is deleted typically after 12 hours, as laid out in the CB7 presentation.
“Have you provided any of these reports to [CB7]?” Upper West Sider Daniel Eldridge asked at Tuesday’s meeting. Zuckerman said that releasing Automotus’ collected data to the public relied on NYCDOT’s decision. “I appreciate hearing about it,” Eldridge said, “But I’d like to actually see some of this [data] on your website or elsewhere.”
For now, the Automotus pilot cannot expand, regardless of its data collection results, until the bill in the Senate is passed into law..
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Would love to see some order brought to our streets.
It is so easy to clean up the mess that is NYC traffic. Increase penalties for repeat ticketing. And/or boot/tow them – really make it hurt. Don’t cut deals with UPS, FedEx, etc. Require any vehicle with that is not self-propelled (i.e. e-bikes) to be registered and subject to penalties for speeding, going the wrong way, etc.
And please do not let this comment thread get bogged down by the anti-car brigade. That is not relevant here so please censor them.
You’re 100% correct. Penalties haven’t been upped in 30 years and it’s cheaper to ignore alternate side than to garage a car.
The base fines need increasing and there should be penalties for repeat violations.
AND? Cameras should be able to form the basis for parking violations as they are for red light and speed cameras.
AND? The comments that should be banned are the ones from the folk who insist on using the names of dead and retired politicians. It’s disrespectful of all concerned.
If people have decent arguments to make they can make them using a single name (doesn’t have to be theirs).
And yes, the anti-car brigade should stop using every incidence like this as an excuse to pull the rug out from under their neighbors.
The dead politician user name comments all have very similar obsessions and phrasing, often with grievance filled stereotypes of UWSiders. I suspect they are all the work of a Long Island man who goes by ‘Eugene’
“Obsessions”. So people who you disagree with or dislike you put them in the category of “obsessed” and “need help” if you see them as enough of a challenge. This comment shows that the anti-car brigade or urbanists or bike bros or whatever, if they have the authoritarian power they crave, they 100% would partake in the political abuse of psychiatry. A quick Wikipedia article on it is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry
West Side Rag’s comment policy states in pertinent part, “we welcome diverse viewpoints and encourage readers to engage critically with one another’s ideas, but never at the expense of civility.” West Side Rag commenters insinuating they know where specific anonymous commenters live, is crossing the line from critical engagement with other’s ideas into a breakdown of civility. Let’s face it, a lot of the anti-car brigade supported the hotels like the Lucerne being used as a homeless shelter and that fight got really ugly up to and including attorney Randy Mastro’s home being vandalized. We are dealing with people who aren’t above crossing the line from spirited and critical engagement to actual harassment offline.
When you cannot win on the issues, you then attack the person or people making the comments. I am sure what “Eugene” or anyone else says is what many people in New Jersey, our northern suburbs, Connecticut and in outer NYC boroughs feel. It is not limited to Long Island.
If West Side Rag really had a problem with the comments, either they would not have approved them, would close comments permanently or mandate every person either have a registered user account or comment under their actual names. I am pretty sure all the UWS Dads on this site are unwilling to make posts under their real names or a single user account.
what exactly do you have against the anti-car brigade?
Did your parents refuse to buy you a car and now you take it out on everyone?
I know this will sound like the anti-car brigade, but you can’t do what you’re asking without taking away free on street parking. UPS trucks, FedEx trucks, delivery trucks for stores, and people just making pickups and drop offs have to go somewhere. Right now they double park because the curb space is being used for parking. That reduces space for cars and buses who are actually moving, causing traffic, noise and pollution. If we want to move short term pickups, drop offs and deliveries out of travel lanes then we need to make room next to the curb.
People could also stop/reduce ordering on Amazon 🙂
It was not as big of a problem before Vision Zero. If we ripped up the bike lanes like what Doug Ford is doing in Toronto, that also would help.
Most of the areas you’re talking about are commercial zones (avenues) which do in fact have paid parking.
People double park on cross streets all the time and UPS and FedEx trucks are mostly going to residential addresses and not just on the avenues.
Avenue parking isn’t free but it’s cheap and if people don’t have room to load/unload at the curb then you either need to make loading zones that prohibit parking (at least during the day) or make them more expensive.
Josh P.
If the goal is to reduce vehicles, then folks can reduce ordering from Amazon – and able-bodied can walk to local stores.
Just as residents did before Amazon 🙂
That’s not what the urbanists want. The urbanists want to replace individual car drivers with corporate actors.
Drivers of Fed Ex, UPS, etc ALWAYS double park because they need to work quickly and if they pull up to the curb it can take time to pull in and out and there’s a possibility they get double parked in and get thrown off schedule.
I’ve actually asked drivers why they don’t use the “Neighborhood Loading Zones” that DOT reserved for them and they either tell me this or just curse at me.
You’re never going to prevent people from parking just by increasing fees (if that’s the goal). The only way to do this is through specific loading zones as you’ve mentioned but in my experience, if there’s no room in the loading zone, a commercial vehicle will simply double park anyway. You really need to increase the monitoring and cost of the tickets to change that calculation.
It would be helpful to have data on how often double parking occurs because a residential car is legally parked there, vs. someone already legitimately using a loading zone which then requires the 2nd loader to double park. As someone who rents cars on occasion and adores driving in NYC, I have no objection to double parking for loading purposes – it’s just another obstacle in the video game of driving here.
Basically you want to make parking so expensive only big corporations with large enough overhead can park on our streets?
why is parking anyone’s problem but yours? you make everyone without cars suffer for your addiction.
Cars and other vehicles facilitate free movement and commerce. There’s nothing wrong with that. It is not an addiction. What is an addiction is your hatred of cars.
The anti-car brigade wants to limit private cars and want us to be like Europe, but they fail to talk about the country that actually did severely restrict cars for most people, Albania.
UPS has donated to TransAlt and so has Amazon.
Yes. Greenwashing. Thgey don’t really care
who do the oil gas and auto companies donate to? what do their donations look like next to TA?
The oil and gas companies are covered no matter what happens. It was actually BP that popularized the term “carbon footprint” to shift the blame on oil usage to individuals while insulating big corporate or state actors.
The auto companies and auto industry does not really fund much in the way of pushback to the urbanist movement. That’s why you have a lawsuit here, a lawsuit there, a few people signing a petition here and a few signing a petition there and a few showing up to community board meetings here and there. Furthermore, we are in 2026 and the urbanist movement has more or less become the establishment. This is not the 1990s, 2000s or 2010s where you can talk a good game about big oil and climate and safe streets and get your way because no one truly understands the consequences of what urbanists want. Urbanists have been very willing to destroy their credibility on street safety over e-bikes.
not sure what your point is, but they spend 1000x as much money to lobby pols for their causes than TA does.
ebikes are from the last 5 years. you’re not wrong about misguided intentions from activists. most people are coming around that we shouldn’t care about people who don’t care at all about safe streets.
Absolutely, better enforcement and ticket cameras would go a long way. Wish NYPD traffic cops took their jobs more seriously.
The traffic cops need to be disciplined to write tickets for vehicles that get special treatment if they put a safety vest on the dashboard, display a sign indicating that it’s a street vendor’s vehicle, or leave their trunks open. There are too many vehicles that get away with either parking for free or parking in No Standing/No Parking zones. Then they need to reign in the large number of placards that allow some vehicles to park anywhere. The traffic cops should not have the power to be selective about which vehicles they ticket.
I’ve always wondered why NYC doesn’t enforce parking rules more aggressively – we’re leaving badly needed revenue on the table.
I like the photo you selected. Fairways is consistently double, triple-parked with personal-delivery drivers. Those vehicles weirdly seem to be mostly from North Carolina.
Exactly. Up until around September, the cars lined up outside of Fairway were parked 3-deep, and Broadway south between 74th and 75th streets had to contend with one lane for cars and busses. Since then, I rarely see cars parked anywhere in front of the store. See, it can be done.
The city knows about the double and triple parking. That’s why they selected this block to put the cameras on. But do they ever ticket anyone? Seems like an easy way to generate some revenue while improving traffic flow.
The traffic cops aren’t doing their jobs objectively and need to be supervised. They pick and choose whom to ticket.
The UWS residents who park on the street are not going to like it when the data from these cameras if implemented more widespread shows that most UWS residents who drive and park on the street barely ever use their cars and then the urbanists push for UWS residents to pay market rate for that privilege. They think that they will get a carve out for themselves. There are very few UWS reverse commuters.
Right! Showing that cars are barely ever used makes a great case to use our curb more productively … not clear how there would be a carve out for the car that 70% of the neighborhood doesn’t own?
UWS residents like Renee Baruch who oppose Transportation Alternatives and Open Plans yet want resident parking permits are digging their own grave by pushing for them. If we got resident parking permits, watch every spot subject to resident only parking permits be full of UWS residents (some of who will bring their cars out of garages) who don’t move at all during the week and could probably get away with having a Zipcar membership.
If the opponents of unmetered street parking removal in Manhattan want to save street parking, they need to broaden their coalition and they are going to need political and popular support from outside Manhattan to be able to save it. While only 27% of UWS households own cars, it is the out of UWS workers, visitors and business owners that support the UWS economy and help make the UWS what it is that adds to the ranks of car users on the UWS. They desperately need numbers and they aren’t doing much of anything to get those numbers. In fact, the opposition is very much fractured, the way the bike advocates go after “NIMBY’s” and “reactionaries” obfuscates how fractured a lot of the opposition is.
The notion that only car owners want available parking is something the anti car folk push and it’s nonsense.
There are plenty of people here who like the fact that their friends and family can come in and visit without having to spend a fortune in parking. And to the extent that this is pushed by the people who want cars replaced by e-bikes? I think it’s a safe bet that more non-owners prefer the cars.
And? While it’s true that ‘only’ 27% of ‘households’ have cars? Households don’t vote, people do. The majority of households with 3 or more people have cars. And based on the census data from the 2010s? The percentage of residents of the Upper West Side in households with cars is closer to 40 than 27.
Yes definitely. The overwhelming majority of non-car owners on the UWS are at best superficially in favor of Open Streets etc. and mostly are agnostic towards cars or lean in favor of them like Paul says. These people support the UWS economy and many families with kids on the UWS end up moving to the suburbs when their kids grow big and still have ties here whether its friends or families.
Forcing these people to use transit where there’s more limited schedules when you have Manhattanites who will not dare step on a public bus at Port Authority or use NJ Transit to head to Rockland County (yes NJ Transit runs MTA Metro-North trains in Rockland and Orange County) to canvass for Cait Conley for Congress and convince people in our suburbs to vote Democrat, all while supporting congestion pricing and anti-car measures, shows their hypocrisy and shows that Manhattanites and others pushing these measures do not want to take the same trains or buses that those in our suburbs and outer boroughs do.
It is my understanding that Streetopia and Open Plans are connected organizations?
Open Plans is a conglomerate. It does its own work and is the parent of Streetopia, Streetsblog, StreetsPAC, etc.
And they constantly refer to each other as if there’s some independence or ‘sister’ relationship when they all report upwards through Open Plans to three residents of the UWS, which is why most of the ‘action’ is centered here.
It’s classic astroturfing — money driven top down activity that’s made to look like grass roots.
The Koch Brothers and others who started the “Tea Party” would be proud.
Yes.
Regarding cars parked around Fairway, a number are gig delivery workers probably Instacart.
Gig delivery workers use individual cars, don’t have commercial plates. Also some are coming from NJ and even Pennsylvania.
True. Many of them are “Ghost Cars ” – missing plates, no registration stickers, and covered VIN numbers. Probably unregistered and uninsured. Call Gale Brewer to get some enforcement on this….
A prelude to unrestrained corporate and government tracking of everyone.
um way too late.
Don’t worry – these cameras have already perfectly analyzed your gait and tied it to you and everything you’ve ever done – there’s no escape, even wearing a mask
Oh my. You leave your rotary dial telephone at home, in a Faraday cage, right?
Clogged streets increase ambulance arrival times.
Low salaries decrease EMT worker population.
Congestion pricing cut EMS travel times by over a minute. https://www.nber.org/papers/w35414
Taking away traffic lanes will negate any “gains”.
OMG, I LOVE THIS!!!!! Now if we could make all commercial deliveries happen in the overnight hours, as other smart cities do, we’d really be getting somewhere!
As “deegee” notes, night delivery would definitely impact on residents living by stores.
Night delivery would also mean higher costs for stores – cost of staff, more security, utilities etc.
Also of note: it means that low wage workers are forced to work at night, commute home late when it is dangerous and be away from their families .
Yet affluent folks get to enjoy being at home, get their convenient delivery.
sure you want to live above the stores getting deliveries at 3am? go for it. dumb idea. the right strategy is micro mobility for last miile.
Why do I think you live on the second floor directly above retail so you are being the ultimate NIMBY?
For the vast majority of us who are not in your situation, I actually think this is a great idea – give companies incentive to do their deliveries overnight and it will reduce all forms of congestion.
A similar idea is to encourage Amazon and others to pay for empty storefronts as disbursement points – deliver items there overnight then have bikes and carts go to the last mile. Cuts down on their trucks during the day plus generates decent renters for empty stores.
So basically bike lanes full of bicycle trucks like Amazon has it? Got it.
all of this is already against the law. why is the law not enforced?
If dsta can’t be subponeaed it can’t be challenged, either.
Do we really wnt to live like this?
If xAutomotus is so “open” why has this been secret for the last few months? What is the budget? Who at the DOT authorized this? Why do we have this “shadow” goverment”
Curious…
Are food trucks allowed to park in commercial spaces?
And also remain parked 24/7?
There are several that do this – never move.
In fact have seen mini-vans deliver supplies in the morning