Skip to main content

Seven finalist cities for US Smart City Challenge announced

After what he called an ‘overwhelming response’, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced seven finalists for the US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Smart City Challenge. The USDOT has pledged up to US$40 million to one city to help it define what it means to be a Smart City and become the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative technologies – self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors – into their transportation network. The finalists are: Austin, Texas;
March 15, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
After what he called an ‘overwhelming response’, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has announced seven finalists for the 324 US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Smart City Challenge.

The USDOT has pledged up to US$40 million to one city to help it define what it means to be a Smart City and become the country’s first city to fully integrate innovative technologies – self-driving cars, connected vehicles, and smart sensors – into their transportation network.

The finalists are: Austin, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Kansas City, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Portland, Oregon; and San Francisco, California, who will each get US$100,000 to further develop their proposals.

“The level of excitement and energy the Smart City Challenge has created around the country far exceeded our expectations,” said Secretary Foxx. “After an overwhelming response – 78 applications total – we chose to select seven finalists instead of five because of their outstanding potential to transform the future of urban transportation.”

The winner will be announced in June and will receive up to UAS$50 million, including US$10 million from launch partner, Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan to support electric vehicle deployment and other carbon emission reduction strategies.

Other partners that have already joined the Smart City Challenge include 4279 Mobileye, 2184 Autodesk and 5460 NXP.

Related Content

  • April 29, 2015
    Public Private Partnerships to gather pace in the US
    Public Private Partnerships are set to play a big role in transportation funding as Andrew Bardin Williams discovers. The old joke goes that the road from New York to Chicago is paved with potholes. For decades, drivers from New York and New Jersey traveling across Pennsylvania to visit the Midwest have lambasted the Commonwealth’s roadways for their lack of smooth pavement.
  • May 16, 2012
    Mobileye to be standard option on Nissan Teana in China
    Mobileye has announced that Nissan showrooms in China will propose Nissan's Teana model (sold as Nissan Maxima in North America) will be equipped with ‘Eagle Eye’, Mobileye’s C2-270 collision prevention system. Buick, Cadillac and Acura showrooms already offer Mobileye C2 as an optional accessory in showrooms in South China; however Nissan says it will be the first to offer a particular model with Mobileye as standard safety fit all over China.
  • January 19, 2012
    Road user charging - replacing the gas tax with a mileage based fee
    Oregon Department of Transportation's James Whitty discusses his state's progress with VMT fee-based charging. Back in 2001, the state of Oregon stole a lead on the rest of the US when it decided to address the need to do something about the gas tax and its decreasing ability to fund highway construction and upkeep. Recognising that a dwindling pot of money could only shrink further as vehicles became more fuelefficient, Oregon's Legislative Assembly passed laws which led to the setting up, by the state's g
  • July 26, 2013
    Qatar invests $70 billion to pave the way to world beating transportation
    Eng. Zeina Nazer looks at what Qatar’s recently-announced investment in transport infrastructure will mean on the ground. Qatar is experiencing a rapid economic and industrial growth. This growth is characterised by a rapid population increase and by the urgent need towards the development of both infrastructure projects and major transport projects. In order to handle this rate of development within Qatar, Public Works Authority (Ashghal) is developing a fully-integrated multimodal transportation system in