About the Project

Project Background Details located below, taken from the lab MCR/Deliverables file:

BACKGROUND

Smart City Columbus

As Columbus looks to move forward in the 21st century, primary goals for our transportation system include improving safety, enhancing mobility, enhancing ladders of opportunity, and addressing climate change.  A pilot program is being implemented through four typical urban districts: Residential Districts (Linden), Commercial District (Easton), Downtown District (Urban Core), and a Logistics District (Rickenbacker Airport).

Funding In 2016, the City of Columbus won $50M in grant money ($40M from the U.S. Department of Transportation and a corresponding $10M from Vulcan Incorporated), for the best description of a “Smart City.”  Since then a total of $417M in support has been collected to help support the original four-year grant with implementation beginning during 2017/2018.

Projects

There are many main projects that will be implemented to help achieve these four goals.  One of the key efforts that unifies many of the projects is an Integrated Data Exchange.  Application Programming Interfaces and Software Development Kits can bring together data from Non-Transportation Data Sources (e.g. Mid-Ohio Food Bank, Department of Health, Columbus Metropolitan Libraries, etc…), Data from Smart City (Trip and Route Planning, Kiosks, Autonomous Vehicles, Electric Vehicle Charging Stations, etc…) and Sources of Transportation Data (Ohio Department of Transportation, Central Ohio Transit Authority, The Ohio State University, etc…)Other projects that can make use of this technology include: Mobility Assistance, Enhanced Permit Parking, Event Parking Management, Delivery Zone Availability, Truck Platooning, Oversized Vehicle Routing, and Interstate Truck Parking

Urban Desert

The residential area chosen to be the focus of Smart Columbus is Linden.  Due to I-71, Linden (an area of approximately 30K citizens) is cut off from many basic services and centers of employment including healthcare, grocery stores, and banking.  Bus stops (especially those with shelters) are lacking.  Three of the 25 highest crash intersections are in Linden. In order to enhance ladders of opportunity there is a need to connect people from Linden to Commercial Districts for jobs and services.

Some Smart City projects focusing on these ends include creating a common payment system for a typically cash-cased and low credit clientele, improving multimodal trip planning, adding street lighting with built-in Wi-Fi, and smart mobility hub.  Additionally, transportation will be addressed with collision avoidance, and connected vehicles.

Advanced Energy Vehicle (AEV)

Your task is to develop an AEV to transport people from Linden to Easton and Polaris.  The AEV will be autonomous, electric-powered and travel suspended from a monorail system. You will be submitting deliverables to the Smart City Columbus Grant Staff.

 

Project Process