Bookable loading-bay slots for delivery vans in crowded city markets
TL;DR Curbslot turns a few marked kerb spaces in one busy market into loading bays that delivery drivers book in 20-minute slots by app or chat message. Marshals keep the bays clear. The municipal corporation or the market association pays, because double-parked vans choke the street for everyone.
Walk through any old wholesale market at 11 a.m. and you'll see it - tempos and vans stopped in the carriageway because there's nowhere legal to unload. A review of three decades of Indian freight research found that urban delivery points usually have no parking set aside, and drivers who can't find a spot double park and slow the whole street down[1]. It also quotes an estimate that traffic jams cost India's big cities more than US$22 billion every year[1].
Do cities know this? They do. Surat's parking policy says on-street loading should be regulated and limited to set hours[2], and Pune's asks for loading space in heavy commercial areas[3]. Very few have the staff to actually run it day to day.
What it does, in regulatory terms: manages kerb space that the city has already designated, under a municipal agreement and a traffic police notification. Curbslot holds no power to fine anyone. Enforcement stays with the police.
A city or market body marks four to ten loading bays on its worst street. Drivers and shopkeepers book a slot ahead, or walk up when one is free. A marshal checks the vehicle number, moves on the cars that squat in the bays and logs overstays, and the city gets weekly data on who uses the kerb, when and for how long, which is exactly what it needs to set hours and prices.
The seed idea was one platform routing every company's vans, and that doesn't work. Rival carriers won't share their stop lists, and fleet routing is already sold by mature vendors. The shared problem no single fleet can fix is where to stop. So Curbslot coordinates the kerb and leaves the routes alone.
Drivers and the shops they serve use it. The payer is whoever suffers from the jam - a municipal corporation or smart city company buying it as a managed service, or a trader association in a large market paying a monthly fee out of member dues. Slot fees from carriers can come later, once the bays are reliable. I couldn't find an Indian price for kerb booking, so the kit sets out a pilot pricing test.
Delivery volume has jumped. India's e-commerce market reached US$125 billion in 2024, and by December 2025 the three biggest quick-commerce firms ran about 4,400 dark stores between them[4]. Every one of those orders ends with a vehicle stopping somewhere. Several city parking policies already promise regulated freight zones[2][3], so the gap is doing it, not getting permission.
There's no public figure for spending on kerb or loading management in India. The narrow evidence is policy intent, with cities such as Surat and Pune writing loading rules into their parking policies[2][3]. Adjacent - quick commerce alone was a US$7–8 billion market in FY25[4], which tells you about stop counts and nothing about what a city will pay. Treat your first market contract as the real signal.
In the UK, a kerb-booking service lets drivers pre-book loading bays and timed virtual bays for London boroughs including Southwark and Lambeth[5]. In India, route-optimisation software firms optimise routes for a single fleet[6], but none of them hands out shared kerb space. I found no Indian product doing bookable loading slots. The gap is an operator that runs the street, not just the app.
| Difficulty | Moderate (48/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹60 L–1.2 Cr |
| Time to launch | 9–12 months |
The software is simple. The hard part is getting a corporation and the traffic police to sign off on the same street and then keeping the bays empty when enforcement is thin. Government buyers also pay slowly, so cash runs short before revenue shows up.
Yes, this needs public sign-off. You're managing city kerb space, so nothing works without the corporation and the police.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI decide who gets fined or penalised. Enforcement belongs to the traffic police, and a misread plate shouldn't land on a driver.
Want to work out the AI layer for Curbslot? Talk to Yash →
I think it's worth a shot if you've worked with a municipal body or a market association and can handle ground staff. If you're hoping to sell an app from a desk then it is not for you. Prove one thing first - on one street, booked bays stay clear at least 80% of the time for a month.
Plan for roughly ₹60 L–1.2 Cr, mostly marshals, software and the long wait on municipal payments.
You need a municipal work order or MoU and a traffic police notification for each street, plus DPDP compliance for driver data.
Yes, London boroughs already use bookable bays. Check who controls the kerb in your city and how it buys services.
The free Curbslot validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the municipal and police approvals checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for drivers, traders and city officials, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Curbslot or something close to it? The make-or-break work is getting a city and its traffic police to back the same street and then keeping the bays clear, and that's the kind of thing I help founders with. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.