Making the kerb work for the people who keep cities running
Cities across Europe and beyond are redesigning streets for walking and adding sensors, platforms and automation. The people who collect the waste, clean the streets and deliver the goods work at the kerb, where all of this meets. Workable Cities brings operators, property owners, places and designers together to make that work safer, more dignified and more efficient, with technology designed around it from the start.
Launched at Smart City Expo World Congress, Barcelona, November 2026.
Photo: Jeroen Overschie / Unsplash
walked in a day by some van delivery drivers in central London, with the van parked at the kerb for up to 60% of the round.
Allen et al., World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2021
working days lost in Great Britain in a year to work-related musculoskeletal disorders, affecting 511,000 workers. Transport and storage is among the sectors with the highest rates.
HSE, Work-related musculoskeletal disorders statistics in Great Britain, 2025
Street sweepers in a Mumbai study were nearly three times as likely as other municipal workers to report shoulder pain (32% against 11%).
Salve & Chokhandre, BMJ Open, 2016
Street work is changing faster than its tools
Pedestrianisation, low-emission zones, e-commerce and rising expectations of clean, safe streets make street-level work more frequent and more complex. Kerbside management and automation are changing who gets access, and when. Each of these decisions changes the working day of a waste collector, a street cleaner or a courier, and the organisations that buy and run those services carry the cost when it goes wrong. In delivery alone, the last mile can account for up to 53% of shipping costs (Capgemini Research Institute, 2019).
The three figures above show the strain of street work from three angles: the courier on foot, the cost to employers and the cleaner's body. Workable Cities brings them into one conversation.
Four lenses for every conversation
Operators and places have to make the case for change inside their own organisations, and it rarely rests on one argument. So we'll look at each question through four lenses.
What makes the work safer on the body?
Injuries, strain and absence among collection crews, street cleaners and couriers, and what keeps people in the job.
How are street roles valued?
Whether the people who look after shared space are treated as part of how a place is run, with the tools, facilities and standing that go with it.
Where are time and money lost at the kerb?
Wasted trips, competition for kerb space, missed collections and contract penalties, and what it would take to reduce them.
Which tools help the people using them?
How data, sensors and automation could support the person on the street and the quality of the place around them.
Plans for people lag behind plans for robots
Leaders expect robots to arrive faster than they are preparing the people who will work alongside them. In a 2026 survey of 800 senior leaders in six countries, including the UK, six in ten expected to run robot fleets within five years, but only four in ten had a plan for a mixed human and robot workforce. The gap was widest in smart cities and defence, at 48 points.
Source: Intel, The Robotics Readiness Gap (2026), research by Man Bites Dog and Coleman Parkes.
The gap is about people and how services are run, and that is where Workable Cities starts.
Starting with shared insight
The first phase is about understanding what is changing at the kerb, what it means for the people who do the work, and where the opportunities lie for those who supply and buy street services. It starts now, with one-to-one conversations, and builds towards a first roundtable early in 2027. The partners who join first will shape what follows.
Agree what matters most
Conversations with operators, crews and places to pin down the challenges, so the questions come from those who do the work and those who pay for it.
Picture the street in 2035
A foresight exercise on how collection, cleansing and delivery could change as automation, climate and street design reshape the work.
See where demand is heading
What city and property buyers are likely to ask for, where operators feel the pressure, and where new products and services could fit. Shared with partners and credited to them.
From insight to action
The same group could turn what it learns into design briefs, specifications and procurement wording that buyers and suppliers can act on, and form consortia to test ideas in real streets.
Questions we want to explore
- How can streets designed for walking still work for collection, cleansing and deliveries?
- How could better-designed equipment reduce strain on collection crews, street cleaners and couriers, and what would that save?
- What could real-time street data do for cleansing, collection and contract performance?
- Where could shared kerbside hubs, for waste as well as goods, take pressure off the street?
- How should cities and property owners buy street services so that the people doing the work are designed in?
For the organisations that run the street
- Waste collection and street cleansing operators
- Last-mile logistics and delivery firms
- Facilities and estate managers
- Property owners and developers
- Urban technology providers
- Business improvement districts and city centre managers
- Foundations with a safety or wellbeing focus
Help fund and shape the first phase, and be credited across what it produces.
Bring your operational questions and experience to the scoping work.
Join a roundtable or share a perspective from your part of the street.
Hear first as the programme takes shape.
Value for the people who supply the street and the people who run it
A head start on where the market is going
- Early sight of what city and property buyers are likely to ask for
- A voice in how buyers frame their needs, before specifications are written
- Contact with places and operators open to trying new tools and ways of working
- Named credit in what the programme publishes
- Evidence to support workforce and social value commitments in bids
Better questions before you buy
- Peers in other cities working through the same pressures
- A neutral space to hear from operators and suppliers ahead of any procurement
- Evidence and wording to use in briefs, contracts and street design
- A way to bring the people who do the work into decisions about the street
Convening and design, together
Recurve
Convening · foresight · procurementRecurve brings places, operators and funders together around shared challenges and helps them act on them. Its founder, Sam Markey, was Founding Chair of the Innovation Procurement Empowerment Centre and co-chaired the World Economic Forum Global Smart Cities Alliance taskforce on innovation-friendly procurement.
Osta Studios
Design · engineering · street operationsOsta Studios, led by Joey Grigg, is a design and engineering practice specialising in street-level urban operations, from cleansing to last-mile delivery. Its work with Veolia and Westminster produced an ergonomic street-cleansing cart now in operational use, and its cargo bike development won IAA Cargo Bike of the Year 2023. ostastudios.com
The things partners ask first
Is this about robots?
It is about the people who work at the kerb, from collection crews and street cleaners to couriers, and the organisations that employ them. Technology is part of that picture, and we welcome tools that make the work safer and the service better. The starting point is the work, then the tools that fit it.
What does registering involve?
We will be in touch to arrange a short conversation about what matters to you. Those conversations will shape a first roundtable early in 2027, where we will test the questions and agree what to work on first. There is no commitment at this stage.
Does it cost anything?
Registering, the conversations and the first roundtable are free. City teams and places take part with their time and knowledge. Founding partners who want to help fund and shape the first phase can talk that through with us.
Who is it for?
Organisations that deliver services in streets and the built environment: waste and cleansing operators, logistics and delivery firms, facilities and estate managers, property owners, technology providers, business improvement districts, city teams, and foundations with an interest in worker safety and wellbeing.
Where will the work take place?
That will depend on who joins. We are inviting operators, suppliers and city teams from the UK, Europe and further afield, because the pressures at the kerb are shared across many cities. The first partner conversation will help decide where to start.
Tell us how you'd like to be involved
Leave your details and we will be in touch personally to set up a conversation.
- A conversation with us now, and a first roundtable early in 2027
- No commitment at this stage
- For operators, property owners, places, technology firms and funders
- We will only contact you about Workable Cities unless you tell us otherwise
Prefer email? Write to sam.markey@recurve.co with "Workable Cities" in the subject.
Workable Cities is a Recurve initiative developed with Osta Studios. Photographs by Recurve and from Unsplash, credited where shown.