Three Cities Use Smart City Concepts to Improve Transportation

Transportation leaders from San Diego; Columbus, Ohio; and Centennial, Colo., shared how smarter transportation helps to achieve larger regional goals around sustainability, equity and greener urban development.
 

Government Technology

BY SKIP DESCANT

NOVEMBER 4, 2020
 

In various parts of the country, cities are using performance analytics and other mainstays of smart city technology to drive climate, transportation and development goals.
 In San Diego, a city where roughly 80 percent of the population turns to a personal vehicle for transportation, smart city leaders have put in place climate action plans to reduce car use and incentivize high-density development.
 “Nobody likes traffic. So I think if you can frame a number of the initiatives you’re taking in the mobility space, the smart city space, the climate space, as ‘this helps with traffic,’ that can get you a long way,” said Almis Udrys, chief of staff for innovation and policy in the mayor’s office in San Diego, speaking during a virtual panel discussion at the Smart Cities Connect Conference and Expo last week.
 In 2014 San Diego established a Performance and Analytics department and formed a “Complete Communities” project with an aim to increase housing density, and thereby reduce vehicle use and traffic.

View the full article: Govtech.com