Manly-born app Kerb touted as a solution to Sydney’s parking problems

A GLOBAL parking app that is the brainchild of a Manly man is being touted as the solution to Sydney’s congestion by allowing residents and businesses to share their spaces in an Uber-style system and save money.

Rob Brown has reinvented Parking with his app Kerb. Picture: Adam Yip.

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A GLOBAL parking app which started in Manly is being touted as the solution to the area’s congestion.

Manly resident Rob Brown, co-founder and managing director of Kerb — a parking app that allows residents and businesses to share their spaces in an Uber-style system — said it could revolutionise parking on the peninsula.

Parking could be made easier with the Kerb app. Picture: Adam Yip.

“People who are commuters — particularly park and ride — who jump on an express bus or ferry from Manly to the city, often have to pay more than $30 per day at the wharf or council carpark,” he said.

The average price in Manly is between $12 and $15 per day.

“It is opening up spaces for those people that wouldn’t otherwise be available.

“It is good for the community, it is getting vehicles off the road, it is good for people for whom it is saving money, it is good for the environment in a big city where people are driving around looking for parking and creating traffic.”

The app, which he said was also used in Singapore, New Zealand and Vietnam, has recently expanded to allow commercial areas with vacant spaces to rent them.

Owners of private parking spaces can set a daily price and it becomes available for people looking for spaces on the app.

Car parking congestion could be solved by this app. Picture: Ros Cannon.

“It is a solution — there is so much parking space available in cities like Sydney. It’s just that there has been no mechanism to unlock those spaces,” Mr Brown said.

“You have spaces sitting in hotels, churches, in schools, but there has been no way to monetise them.

“Kerb is a way to do that and is part of a sort of smart city movement for the future where we are getting cars off the road and allowing people to not necessarily drive into the city, but park on the outskirts and jump on public transport.”

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