Tech and Innovation Center Session

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act expanded federal funding for low or no emission buses more than six-fold to some $1.6 billion. This historic investment will provide assistance for 150 bus fleets and facilities to reduce air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions. This session will provide an inside look at U.S. cities' experiences with electric buses to date. How have these early adopters navigated procurement, workforce, and other operational challenges? Guests will share their lessons and advice for cities as they prepare to submit applications to the federal Transit Administration's FY2023 Low or No Emission Vehicle program. Webinar Resources Watch the recording!

Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A), a new program established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, provides more than $5 billion in new federal funding for planning and implementation of strategies to prevent roadway deaths and serious injuries. U.S. DOT announced awards for implementation grants from the program’s first round. How do technology innovations fit into successful SS4A projects? What makes for winning technology-enabled proposals? With SS4A’s second round tentatively scheduled to kick off in April 2023, this session will provide participants with an opportunity to learn from cities implementing tech innovations funded through the program’s FY2022 discretionary funding round.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act provides more than $65 billion for broadband infrastructure. The bulk of these funds will be administered by state governments. With states finalizing Five-Year Action Plans for federal review, cities are preparing for these new opportunities to expand access to reliable, affordable, high-speed internet service. This session will provide a deep dive into strategies cities can use to make the most of these funding opportunities: What kinds of broadband technologies and networks are eligible for funding, and what innovative approaches to future-proofing these investments are available? What data should cities invest to maximize access to and impact of broadband funds as state plans roll out? How can cities use these data to evaluate state investments? States seeking Digital Equity funds are required to develop digital equity plans. Do cities need their own digital equity plans? What opportunities exist for combining and layering multiple programs and sources of broadband funding to maximize impact? What innovative approaches to funding broadband investments for multi-family housing are available?  

The first of two Technology + Innovation Center webinars highlighting technology and innovation awards made through US DOT’s 2022 SMART Grants Program, this webinar will explore the solutions for urban freight management in U.S. cities. The pandemic dramatically accelerated the growth of goods moving on city streets as people shifted to online shopping. These freight flows, focused on rapid delivery within residential areas, are different from anything cities have encountered before. And they have created enormous challenges for cities’ efforts to improve safety, manage congestion, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Curbs are one of the most important, yet undervalued asset in the urban public realm. As cities confront new patterns of activity, new demands on the public right of way, and fiscal and environmental challenges, curbs are a critical platform for driving change. The second of two Technology + Innovation Center webinars highlighting awards from the 2022 Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program, this webinar looks at how cities are deploying a variety of approaches to developing curb data platforms. Questions to be answered include: What are the short- and long-term goals of curb coding efforts? What data do cities plan to collect? How will it be used, what value is created, and how will it be managed? What core technologies and data standards are available and what must be developed? How will cities incentivize various stakeholders to participate? Who does what? How are cities enlisting vendors and other partners to design, deploy and operate these solutions?

This session focuses on current and future funding opportunities from the U.S. DOE, aimed at helping cities update their building codes.

Participants will hear from Austin city leaders about how these solutions are helping model smoke clouds from building and wildfires, and optimize workflows and layouts inside a new emergency operations center, and how the city structures its partnership with university-based researchers.

City governments face a growing array of threats from cyberattacks targeting city-owned and operated information systems. But even more worrisome, as cities shift to cloud-based IT solutions for everyday tools and integrate “smart” capabilities into IIJA-funded infrastructure systems, software supply chains are becoming increasingly complex. Critical information systems used by cities often depend on integrations with third-party components and services whose risks are poorly understood.

With more than $60m in annual funding under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Federal Highway Administration’s Advanced Transportation Technology and Innovation (ATTAIN) program is taking on the challenge of delivering safer and more efficient transportation to areas of persistent poverty—not only on highways but transit systems, too. This session will explore how cities can take advantage of ATTAIN funding for congestion pricing systems, mobility-on-demand solutions, and transportation service payment systems integrations to advance their shared mobility goals. We’ll take a deep dive into California Department of Transportation’s FY2022 ATTAIN award, which will expand the Southern California Mobility Wallet project, which offers seamless payment for highway and transit services for Los Angeles County residents. Questions to be answered include: How does “open-loop” payments technology work, and what are the benefits? How can cities work with state DOTs to partner and develop competitive proposals for ATTAIN? How can cities navigate the FHWA application and review process, and how is it different from more familiar agency processes such as the FTA? Speakers Include: Gillian Gillett, Chief, Data and Digital Services Division and Program Manager, California Integrated Mobility, California Department of Transportation Hunter Owens, Research Data Manager, Data and Digital Services, California Department of […]

This session will provide a "how to" guide for standing up an innovation team, including the strategic and legal infrastructure for running technology pilots related to the built environment in your city.

Cities will learn about future funding opportunities through the FTA's Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities and Low- and No-Emission (Low-No) Vehicle programs, and lessons learned from cities’ successful FY2023 proposals.

This session will investigate how cities across the country are using SS4A funding to deploy new data capture technologies including cameras, drones, and LiDAR to detect near-misses and other high-risk incidents, and predictive analysis tools to inform street design and transportation planning.