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

  • October 28, 2015
    Emissions reductions targets to have major impact on transport
    As bold moves aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been introduced in California, David Crawford looks at the ramifications for transportation. California Governor Jerry Brown’s recent dramatic raising of the bar on emissions reduction policy for the state has won him praise from Japan, Australia, Europe and the secretariat of the critical UN conference on climate change being held in Paris in November/December 2015. His April 2015 executive order aimed at bringing emissions to 40% below 1990 lev
  • January 25, 2022
    Data helps Ohio DoT get grant money
    Ohio Department of Transportation turned to StreetLight Data when it needed to finalise grant money for a key infrastructure link. David Crawford sees how metrics brought in the cash…
  • September 17, 2015
    USDOT to fund transit improvements across the country
    The US Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) today announced that 21 organisations around the country will receive a share of US$19.5 million in grants to support comprehensive planning projects that improve access to public transit. The funds are made available through FTA’s Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Planning Pilot Program for communities that are developing new or improved mass transit systems.
  • March 3, 2017
    Freight poses growing problem for city authorities
    Wes Guckert considers possible solutions and countermeasures to the problems of increased freight deliveries in growing cities. In January 2016, the US Department of Transportation (USDoT) conducted a session on the SmartCity Challenge and Urban Freight and Logistics. This session was a follow-up to the USDoT report titled, Beyond Traffic 2045.