Skip to main content

‘Overwhelming response’ to USDOT Smart City Challenge

Medium-sized cities across the US have submitted applications for the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) Smart City Challenge. According to US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, 77 cities from Reno to Rochester and Anchorage to Albuquerque have applied to enter the competition, which seeks to create an innovative, fully integrated model city that uses data, technology and creativity to shape how people and goods move in the future. The USDOT will award the winning city up to US$40 million to imp
February 9, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Medium-sized cities across the US have submitted applications for the 324 US Department of Transportation (USDOT) Smart City Challenge. According to US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, 77 cities from Reno to Rochester and Anchorage to Albuquerque have applied to enter the competition, which seeks to create an innovative, fully integrated model city that uses data, technology and creativity to shape how people and goods move in the future.

The USDOT will award the winning city up to US$40 million to implement bold, data-driven ideas that make transportation safer, easier, and more reliable. Additionally, Paul G. Allen's Vulcan Inc. intends to award up to US$10 million to the challenge winner to support electric vehicle deployment and other carbon emission reduction strategies, while Mobileye announced that it would outfit the entire fleet of the winning city's public bus system with its Shield + driver-assistance safety technology.

Applicants from cities across the country were asked to include a range of innovations and data-driven platforms to anticipate and address community needs. Specifically, the USDOT is looking at how to integrate multiple innovations such as automated vehicles, the sharing economy, and other technologies into a network that connects people to their intelligent transportation system.

Five finalists will be announced at SXSW in Austin on 12 March. These finalists will each receive US$100,000 to hone their proposals and develop applications for the final selection process scheduled for June 2016. Vulcan will work with the USDOT to assist the five finalist cities with technical guidance and other support in keeping with its commitment to leverage technology, investments, and philanthropy to drive a low-carbon future.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Digital twins help city space race
    October 26, 2022
    As the world becomes more urbanised, there is a need to monitor the likely effects this will have on the way we live, says Jeroen Borst of TNO, the Dutch organisation for applied scientific research
  • Glasgow wins future cities grant
    January 25, 2013
    The city of Glasgow has won a Future Cities Demonstrator grant from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), a body set up by the UK government in 2007 to stimulate technology-enabled innovation. The grant, worth US$37.8 million, is intended to make Glasgow one of the UK's first smart cities; the money will be used on projects to demonstrate how a city of the future might work. Plans include better services for citizens, with real-time information about traffic and apps to check that buses and trains are on tim
  • ITSWC 2021: New solutions for the new normal
    September 20, 2021
    October’s ITS World Congress in Hamburg will profile the changing face of mobility, with real-world examples of electric vehicle implementation, shared transport and autonomy taking centre stage
  • EIT Mobility’s A-Z of Uvar
    January 31, 2023
    Well-implemented vehicle mobility schemes offer cities quick ways to improve the quality of urban life - and now EIT Mobility has written a guide to doing so. Andrew Stone has a read…