ATLANTA, July 13, 2021 – Cox announced today that its Smart Curbside Management solution, delivered by Cox2M in partnership with Cox Business and the City of Las Vegas, was a recipient of the 2021 Smart 50 Awards which honors the 50 most creative and influential smart city initiatives from around the world. Awardees had to show impact and applications with clear connections to municipalities or municipal-similar partners such as campuses, counties, or regions. In this, Cox and the City had a shared mission of reducing downtown traffic congestion and of creating a better, safer experience for residents and visitors to the famed Strip.

Las Vegas is a hotspot for tourism, making rideshares and taxis a popular form of transportation. In fact, research shows that in recent years there were around 5,200 registered rideshare drivers on top of thousands of established taxi drivers in the area, driving up overcrowding on roads and increasing wait times for pick-up. This problem was especially pervasive along the City’s curbs given the high levels of activity across all times of the night. Cox tackled this problem head-on with its Smart Curbside Management solution.

Cox‘s solution mimicked the enforcement activities already happening along the curb that kept traffic flowing safely and efficiently. By placing two Smart Kiosks over the span of six parking spots along the Main Street sidewalk, Cox was able to replicate the same notifications that drivers experienced when enforcement officers told them to move. Devices were also deployed along the curb that utilized video analytics to detect when vehicles parked, and this data was sent to the kiosks to trigger countdown timers that clearly displayed how much time the driver had left along the curb.

The Smart Kiosks also played another important role in Cox’s solution. To support the solutions’ scalability and sustainability, Cox, Cox Media, and the City, explored the placement of digital advertisements and public service announcements on the kiosks. By testing the monetization of the digital ad space, Cox can determine the viability of a funding model that shifts the burden off of the City, an important theme that Cox carries through to its other Smart City solutions where possible.

The result of its solution was an increase in compliance of curbside usage rules, and the creation of data insights for the City – all viewable and accessible through Cox’s Smart Communities Platform:

• Reduced volume of rideshare vehicles lingering for rides, reducing double parking
• Increased utilization, allowing more passengers to be dropped off and picked up
• Record of peak usage and violation times, empowering efficient scheduling of enforcement officers
• Record of traffic flow in the area, helping to identify congestion causes and patterns

Cox’s solution helps establish a foundation on which the City can deliver a better experience to its residents and visitors. The Smart Kiosks can be leveraged to deliver additional services like wayfinding to local restaurants and businesses, and the mobility-centric data, when layered with other Smart City solutions like Smart Parking and Smart Traffic Management, creates a detailed view of how visitors and residents are interacting with the City. Bringing this all together empowers the City to create a safe, engaging, and exciting environment for its residents and visitors, a true Smart City.

"It’s an honor for this project to be recognized at the global level among so many other impactful smart city initiatives,” said Barak Weinisman, Vice President of Cox2M and Smart Communities. "Our goal with this program was to first and foremost help Las Vegas evolve as a smart city in a scalable and sustainable way. We look forward to leveraging these insights to solve similar problems across the country.”

Improvements in curbside management paired with smart solutions for traffic, parking, and more create greater mobility citywide and allow residents and visitors to safely and efficiently enjoy their time spent downtown. For more information on Cox Smart Communities and how it is powering safer and smarter cities, visit www.cox2m.com.

About Cox Business:
The commercial division of Cox Communications, Cox Business provides voice, data and video services for more than 355,000 small and regional businesses nationwide, including health care providers; K−12 and higher education; financial institutions; and federal, state and local government organizations. The organization also serves most of the top-tier wireless and wireline telecommunications carriers in the U.S. through its wholesale division. For more information, please visit www.coxbusiness.com.

About Cox2M:
A Cox Communications business line, Cox2M is committed to enabling truly connected environments by providing commercial Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to businesses and communities. Cox2M is a long-term digital transformation partner to its customers and delivers a platform and ecosystem of solutions that lay the foundation for innovation and advancement. Cox2M's end-to-end solutions seamlessly integrate connectivity, hardware, software and analytics to solve customer problems. Cox2M currently serves the automotive, agriculture, energy distribution and cities sectors.