Columbus wins US Smart City Challenge

Columbus, Ohio has been selected as the winner of the US Department of Transportation's (US DOT) Smart City Challenge. As winner of the Challenge, Columbus will receive up to US$40 million from US DOT and up to US$10 million from Vulcan to supplement the US$90 million that the city has already raised from other private partners to carry out its plan. The Smart City Challenge generated a significant amount of excitement and interest amongst cities. US DOT received seventy-eight applications in total – on
June 24, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Columbus, Ohio has been selected as the winner of the 324 US Department of Transportation's (US DOT) Smart City Challenge. As winner of the Challenge, Columbus will receive up to US$40 million from US DOT and up to US$10 million from Vulcan to supplement the US$90 million that the city has already raised from other private partners to carry out its plan.

The Smart City Challenge generated a significant amount of excitement and interest amongst cities. US DOT received seventy-eight applications in total – one from nearly every mid-sized city in America. The seven finalist cities – Austin, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Portland and San Francisco – were announced in March.

Columbus was selected as the winner because it put forward an impressive, holistic vision for how technology can help all of the city's residents to move more easily and to access opportunity. The city proposed to deploy three electric self-driving shuttles to link a new bus rapid transit centre to a retail district, connecting more residents to jobs. Columbus also plans to use data analytics to improve health care access in a neighbourhood that currently has an infant mortality rate four times that of the national average, allowing them to provide improved transportation options to those most in need of prenatal care.

Announcing the winner, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said that public-private partnerships were essential to the success of the Smart City Challenge. The Department announced partnerships with some of the most innovative folks in the private sector, including launch partner Vulcan, cloud partner Amazon Web Services, 566 NXP Semiconductors, 4279 Mobileye, 2184 Autodesk, Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs, AT&T, DC Solar and Continental Automotive.  In addition, these seven cities were able to leverage US DOT's US$40 million grant to raise approximately US$500 million more in funding – a vast majority of which comes from a diverse group of over 150 partners.
Location Based Systems Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • ITF presents latest results on impacts of shared urban mobility
    September 29, 2016
    Speaking at the World Mobility Leadership Forum in Detroit this week, José Viegas, Secretary-General of the International Transport Forum (ITF) will tell world mobility leaders that smart methods for sharing vehicles hold the key to solving a city’s mobility issues, from congestion and air quality to better access to jobs or education. According to ITF, most negative impacts of current urban mobility patterns stem from the extraordinarily inefficient use of the private car. While a car is one of the most
    Read More
  • MaaS transit does Dallas
    October 22, 2018
    What started five years ago as a mobile ticketing app is evolving towards a full MaaS offering for the US city of Dallas, Texas. Colin Sowman finds out why and how. When it was launched in September 2013, GoPass was the first multimodal, multi-agency transit fare payment app in the US. Introduced by the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (Dart), GoPass combines a mobile ticketing app with a trip planning function and it is also accepted by Trinity Railway Express, Trinity Metro and the Denton County Transportation
    Read More
  • US regulator ‘paves the way for Google’s self-driving car’
    February 11, 2016
    A letter to Google, the US federal transport regulator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), appears to pave the way for self-driving cars, but adds the proviso that the rule-making could take some time. Google had requested clarification of a number of provisions in the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSSs) as they apply to Google’s described design for self-driving vehicles (SDVs). “If no human occupant of the vehicle can actually drive the vehicle, it is more reasonable
    Read More
  • Moovit partners with Atkins to improve city transport systems
    October 9, 2017
    Design and project management consultancy, Atkins has signed a global agreement with transit data and analytics company Moovit to help cities improve their transit systems and become more efficient smart cities. The partnership will help in the design and delivery of people's movement in cities across all transport systems, along with the ability to meet the demands of new intelligent mobility opportunities.
    Read More

Highlighted Content