Skip to main content

San Diego and US Marine Corps partner on smart city development

The City of San Diego has partnered with the US Marines to develop smart cities technologies such as drones - or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) - and smart streetlights. The Californian city’s authorities will meet with the Marine Corps Installations Command (MCICOM) regularly to exchange technology ideas, review the status of ongoing projects and identify new areas of collaboration. The partners say they will also utilise working groups to review issues and develop actions plans relating to mobility,
March 11, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

The City of San Diego has partnered with the US Marines to develop smart cities technologies such as drones - or unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) - and smart streetlights.

The Californian city’s authorities will meet with the Marine Corps Installations Command (MCICOM) regularly to exchange technology ideas, review the status of ongoing projects and identify new areas of collaboration. The partners say they will also utilise working groups to review issues and develop actions plans relating to mobility, security and public works.

San Diego wants to include the Marines in a pilot programme to advance the testing of UAS for the 324 US Department of Transportation.

Additionally, the partners will collaborate on the city’s ‘Get it Done’ app, which allows users to report problems and request improvements for neighbourhoods. It uses GPS information embedded within photos to automatically update addresses and locations.

According to the city’s government, San Diego has 3,200 smart streetlights which come with smart sensors that reduce energy costs by 60%.

In 2018, San Diego was chosen to participate in the Federal Aviation Administration’s UAS programme to test a range of advanced drone missions over the next few years.

UTC

Related Content

  • September 6, 2017
    Remote remedies help US authorities identify bridge deficiencies
    Every day 185 million vehicles – cars, trucks, school buses, emergency response units - cross one or more of America’s 55,710 'structurally compromised' steel and concrete road bridges, the highest concentration of which are in Iowa (nearly 5,000), Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Nearly 2,000 of these crossings are located on interstate highways, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's recent analysis of the US Department of Transportation's 2016 National Bridge Inventory.
  • May 30, 2017
    NASA drone traffic management tests take off in Reno
    NASA and its partners are in the midst of testing the next, more complex version of its unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) traffic management (UTM) technologies with live, remotely-operated aircraft, or drones, at six different sites around the US.
  • September 20, 2012
    Developing integrated transport networks
    A major initiative in managing numerous transport networks as a single system has moved into a significant phase with design of sophisticated new ITS systems. Jon Masters reports. Detailed design work is under way on two pilot projects pursuing a common principle – that transportation can be made more efficient or effective if the various networks and modes of travel are managed as a whole system. This is the central tenet of the US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Integrated Corridor Management (ICM)
  • March 1, 2013
    Airborne traffic monitoring - the future?
    A new frontier in the quest to monitor road traffic is opening up… but using airborne drones to reduce the jams comes with some thorny issues. Chris Tindall reports. Imagine if you could rely on a system that provided all the data you needed to regulate traffic flow, route vehicles and respond swiftly to emergencies for a fraction of the cost of piloting a helicopter. That system exists, but as engineers and traffic managers start to explore the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – more commonly k