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Autonomous Vehicles, New Mobility & the Built Environment

Connected Cars & Connected Cities – Making Them Smarter

The intersection of telecom, sensors and transportation to create “smart cities” is the concept that Adrian Pearmine discusses in the above video. Pearmine, National Director for Smart Cities and Connected Vehicles for DKS Associates, delves into the recent U.S. Department of Transportation Smart City Challenge and how it could be the catalyst for change in mobility, the way Google Fiber drove gigabit broadband service in urban areas.

Smart City Challenge - Finalist Graphic in Blue
Graphic Courtesy of US DOT

As Pearmine describes, the $40M DOT Smart City Challenge was not prescriptive, allowing cities to shape proposals that best fit their needs. DKS Associates and Pearmine were intimately involved in the submission by Portland, Oregon, one of seven finalists out of an initial round of 78 cities, which was ultimately awarded to Columbus, Ohio.

For its submission, Portland focused on three distinct corridors to demonstrate the benefits of adding connectivity and autonomous features to transportation::

  • One corridor that with dense urban in-fill on one end to under-served communities on the other end
  • Another corridor with great deal of freight traffic and industrial use that are difficult to serve with traditional transit
  • An area with relatively high-rates of pedestrian fatalities and under-served in terms of last-mile transit

To this last issue of the last-mile access, he talks of an approach whereby they would complement existing transit with the addition electric circulator shuttles that initially would be piloted with a human and, eventually, be autonomously driven.

To improve truck throughput, reduce emissions and enhance safety, they were proposing a test of truck and transit signal priority, along the industrial corridor. Further, they were looking at multi-modal communications, extending to pedestrians and bicyclists. Combining sensors, such as motion detectors, with Vehicle to Infrastructure communications would give drivers a warning of oncoming pedestrian or bicyclist, as well as create the opportunity for signaling that adapts to actual traffic, instead of fixed timing.

Pearmine points out that, in addition to better real-time traffic decisions, part of the proposal was a big-data play to allow better long-term decisions. He points to the power of opening up the data to leverage the power of the crowd to help find nuggets of information that could help planners, transportation engineers and businesses deploy resources more efficiently. And as Pearmine emphasizes, a key element to creating the smart city of tomorrow, is the fundamental building block of a robust communications infrastructure.

 

Author Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

By Ken Pyle, Managing Editor

Ken Pyle is Marketing Director for the Broadband Forum. The mission of this 25+-year-old non-profit “is to unlock the potential for new markets and profitable revenue growth by leveraging new technologies and standards in the home, intelligent small business, and multi-user infrastructure of the broadband network.”

He is also co-founder of Viodi, LLC and Managing Editor of the Viodi View, a publication focused on the rural broadband ecosystem, autonomous vehicles, and electric aviation. He has edited and produced numerous multimedia projects for NTCA, US Telecom and Viodi. Pyle is the producer of Viodi’s Local Content Workshop, the Video Production Crash Course at NAB, as well as ViodiTV. He has been intimately involved in Viodi’s consulting projects and has created processes for clients to use for their PPV and VOD operations, as well authored reports on the independent telco market.

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