Nairobi is the first African city to see the roll-out of Kerb, a mobile app that enables residents and businesses to lease out their parking areas.
The Kenyan city joins London, Rome, San Franciso, Singapore, Sydney and others worldwide in making the most of available space – accommodating cars, motorcycles, trucks, boats and even helicopters.
Available for iOS and Android, the parking-management platform is designed to lease – and find – private parking spots, be they in an empty driveway, garage or building rooftop. This creates additional revenue for the owners of the space (which include residents, businesses, shopping centres and educational institutions), while providing affordable and convenient short-term or long-term parking for vehicle owners.
Co-founder Rob Brown – who describes Kerb as the ‘Airbnb for car parking’, says the app reduces congestion and environmental impact by taking cars off the roads, adding that it ‘makes use of existing infrastructure – and means more money for locals to spend in the economy’.
Individual spaces can be customised according to availability, price and vehicle type, with tariffs starting at around KES300.