The concept of converting a whole city into a smart city with new technology all around gathering data or executing certain tasks is difficult to execute, albeit rewarding for monetary, safety, and efficiency reasons. There can be many hurdles to add IoT technology into cities; regulations, cost, and the support from multiple companies and the city itself. With the popularity of IoT and data management increasing and up to 66% of people supporting implementing smart city technology, many programs have been created to help cities adopt smart city concepts and implement them, ranging from the U.S. to Southeast Asia.
Over a three-part series, we will highlight different programs from around the world and see how they are approaching their city’s challenges.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT’s) Smart City Challenge
In 2015, the DOT was one of the first big organizations that pushed for cities to adopt new technology to be more efficient. It asked mid-sized cities across America to “develop ideas for an integrated, first-of-its kind smart transportation system that would use data, applications, and technology to help people and goods move more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently.”
The DOT ended up receiving 78 applicant cities, each with their own ideas to approach tackling urban mobility challenges. The cities and ideas included:
Seattle — Shared data would provide dynamic routing for truck traffic, promote off-peak and overnight deliveries, and enable car-share operators to deliver packages.
Las Vegas — Connected autonomous shuttles would transport workers and solar-powered electric vehicle charging stations would help reduce emissions.
Boston — “Radically programmable” city streets with dynamic marking would change from loading zones to thoroughfares to spaces for street hockey, depending on the time of day and season.
Pittsburgh — Smart street lights with sensors would monitor local air quality and convert the city’s public fleet to electric vehicles.
San Francisco — Connected infrastructure would monitor and optimize the performance of carpool lanes and make carpooling easy with the use of a smartphone app for instant carpool matching. Carpool pickup plazas would be established for riders without smartphones.
Two interesting cities that caught our eye were:
Denver, Colorado
The city of Denver was one of the cities that quickly jumped at the opportunity to push its way into tomorrow, and it paid off as it devised a plan that was included as a finalist.
In 2015–2016, Denver faced many challenges, including congestion, crime, aging public infrastructure, smog, and other environmental degradation.
- Its population was increased by 23% (10,000–15,000 new residents annually), which increased single-occupancy vehicle congestion by 3%
- 9% of residents live near or below the poverty rate, with limited mobility options
- 30% increase in the cost of living since 2010
- Ozone non-attainment area
- Nearly one in 10 Denver residents have asthma, of which 53% of residents think air quality is poor
The city’s plan outlined three main components, each with their own objectives:
- Mobility-on-demand enterprise
- Transportation electrification
- Intelligent vehicles
These challenges pushed for Denver to form its own initiative, the “Denver Smart City.” This initiative builds on the ideas from the city’s Smart City Challenge plan.
Denver plans on reducing air pollution and limiting greenhouse emissions by increasing the utilization of electric vehicles and connected vehicle technology. Many charging stations have already been added around Denver to push the growth of electric vehicles. It also received a $100,000 grant to measure air quality at public schools by using air quality sensor technology to gather real-time, hyper-local air quality data.
Denver has had big partners that have included Panasonic. The city has worked with Panasonic with Peña Station NEXT, in which it plans to make a small “smart city” community near the Denver International Airport to introduce newer technology in a smaller setting first.
This push in Denver has also made its way toward all of Colorado as it has developed the “Colorado Smart Cities Alliance.” This alliance is a statewide, multi-jurisdictional collaboration of public, private, and academic sector leaders committed to accelerating the adoption of smart cities projects and initiatives in the Colorado communities.
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus was the winner of the Smart City Challenge, in which the city planned to show a holistic vision on how technology can help all residents move better and access opportunity.
Its main goal was to decrease the infant mortality rate by 40% and to cut the health disparity gap in half by 2020, as the infant mortality rate is widely viewed as the global standard for measuring the health of a community.
Within the plan that it submitted to the DOT, there were four desired outcomes: improving safety, enhancing mobility, enhancing ladders of opportunity, and addressing climate change. To achieve these outcomes, Columbus created a menu of smart solutions that built upon four core-enabling technologies:
The Connected Columbus Transportation Network (CCTN) — The CCTN will implement traffic signals that will be equipped with traffic detection and sensors, dedicated short-range communications, and pedestrian detection. The plan is to have truck-loading zones with machine-vision detection of zone availability and multi-functioning kiosks with transit service information, first/last mile and bike-/vehicle-sharing information, parking availability, and Wi-Fi hot spots.
The Integrated Data Exchange (IDE) — This open data environment will contain data from different sources that are consistent with the U.S. DOT’s Research Data Exchange concept. The purposes of the IDE are to:
- Generate performance metrics for program monitoring and evaluation
- Transparently serve the needs of public agencies, researchers, and entrepreneurs
- Provide practical guidance and lessons learned to other potential deployment sites
- Assist health and human service organizations to provide more effective services to their clients
Enhanced Human Services (EHS) — These services will provide a suite of applications and processes to residents and visitors. The applications will include a multi-modal trip-planning application, a common payment system for all transportation modes, a smartphone application for assistance to persons with disabilities, and an integration of travel options at key locations for visitors.
Electric Vehicle (EV) Infrastructure — Columbus will expand its Smart Grid program by installing vehicle-to-grid capability for charging stations to manage grid resource. It will also provide assistance and analysis to fleet operators so that they can be encouraged to adopt EVs and increase their investments in EV charging and creating customer education programs (ride-and-drive events) to increase EV sales.
This plan is called the “Smart Columbus,” wherein the city will continue to add on projects to help achieve this goal with the help of the DOT’s $40 million winning. The DOT even continued to give out extra grant funding—$10 million to Columbus, $11 million to Pittsburgh and San Francisco, and $6 million to Denver—to push toward the future.
Check back for Part 2 of our smart city series!