Columbus wins US$50 million Smart City Challenge

The US Department of Transportation announced late last week that Columbus, Ohio is the winner of the Smart City Challenge. The city is set to receive a US$40 million grant from the federal agency which will be combined with US$10 million from the Vulcan Foundation and the US$90 million raised separately by the city from private sources to fund electric vehicle fleets, new data and communication tools for the mobility sector, and creation of new routes to connect under-served communities.

Andrew Ginther, Mayor of Columbus, said his city is the fastest growing in the region in job and wage growth and is “thrilled to be America’s first Smart City.” Aparna Dial, Programme Manager for Smart Columbus and Deputy Director of the Department of Public Service, told Cities Today that her city took on the Smart City Challenge because it is “striving to be the nation’s epicentre for Intelligent Transportation Systems research, development, and implementation.”

The project, with a total of US$140 million, will be administered by the Smart Columbus Program Office. Decisions about how to allocate the money will be made by a committee chaired by the mayor and several others including a representative of CEOs of the city’s leading employers.

Dial attributed Columbus’ win to their planned strategy to harness targeted smart technologies to tackle specific problems people are facing on a daily basis. She cites the use of “smart payment” projects using phone apps and creating new, data-driven transport routes in the troubled Linden neighbourhood to help mothers access pre-natal care providers and make it easier for the unemployed in the neighbourhood to travel to job centres and interviews.

The ability to see the big picture and provide a detailed plan for implementing technologies was part of the Smart City Challenge. Columbus’ decision “to try to attack problems holistically” through public-private collaboration is really what set them apart from the 77 other cities competing, Dial said. She noted that “by knocking down silos” Columbus has “managed 102 projects, representing US$284 million in public investment while leveraging US$2.58 billion in private investment.”

With the win, Columbus also receives US$1 million in credits from Amazon to use their cloud and professionals services and guidance. Mobileye, Autodesk, and NXP are also other private partners providing in-kind services and products to Columbus as the winning city.