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The city of Columbus, Ohio has won the national Smart City Challenge. They will receive up to $40 million from the United States Department of Transportation and up to $10 million from Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc. This will supplement the $90 million they have already raised from other public-private partnerships.
Applicants were asked to submit ideas for a smart city in America that had a “fully integrated, forward-looking transportation network” resembling an ecosystem rather than a silo. Ideas submitted by applicants included autonomous vehicles, a fully electric city fleet, and 13,000 buses, taxis, and cars equipped with vehicle to vehicle (V2V) communication.
Columbus won because their vision was holistic, focusing not just on new technology, but on widespread accessibility as well as closing poverty and age gaps. In their application, the city included a proposal to deploy electric self-driving shuttles that link a bus rapid transit center to a retail district to connect people to jobs, and used data analytics to expand transportation options for those in need of prenatal care. What they did not include was fixed rail, as other cities who have rail still battle congestion.
The cities of Seattle and Spokane were among the 78 applicants but were not selected as finalists.
View the seven finalists’ video pitches here.
