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.

UTC

Related Content

  • May 8, 2014
    Xerox and University of Michigan partner on urban mobility
    Xerox is to form a three-year partnership with the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) to help shape the future of urban mobility across the country. The ultimate goal is to demonstrate how emerging automotive information-based systems and communications capabilities enable improved transaction-based business processes.
  • December 6, 2017
    Mexico City seeks solutions to improve air quality
    David Crawford ponders prospects for one of the world’s most congested and polluted cities. In 1992, the United Nations named Mexico City as the world’s most polluted urban centre. In the first half of 2016, following the updating of pollution alert limits to meet international standards, Mexico recorded 115 days where ozone concentrations exceeded the acute exposure health limit.
  • November 13, 2024
    ITS Australia Awards 2025 finalists announced

    ITS Australia has announced 32 finalists for the 15th Annual ITS Australia Awards, with winners announced at a ceremony on 13 February 2025 in Perth, Western Australia.

  • May 30, 2014
    Making the case for interstate tolling
    A provision in the Grow America Act, introduced to Congress last month by Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, proposes lifting a decades-old ban on tolling existing interstate general purpose lanes. According Daniel Papiernik, HNTB Corporation's mid-Atlantic toll services leader, writing in Roll Call, recent opposition to the proposal is short-sighted. He claims that relying on revenues derived from the gas tax is simply an unsustainable way of funding the nation’s aging roads, bridges and tunnels