Tag: Digital cities
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The Smart Parking Revolution Gains Momentum
by James A. Bacon No one likes paying for parking, but the prospect of parting with a buck or two is nothing compared to the hassle of rummaging through your pockets, in your glove compartment or under the floor mats for stray coins. The only thing worse is worrying about your time expiring, dashing outside…
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Gearing up for the Smart Car/Road Revolution
by James A. Bacon The automobile industry is undergoing the greatest technological revolution since… well, probably since the invention of the automobile. Cars are getting “smarter,” as in embedded with more powerful sensors and artificial intelligence, and they are getting more connected — with other cars and with roads, which are getting smarter as well.…
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Let’s Jump on the Peer-to-Peer Bandwagon
Vested interests in cities around the country are mobilizing to thwart a new generation of peer-to-peer technologies threatening to disrupt the lodging and transportation industries. I have documented the difficulties of Uber, the e-hailing service (tap on your smart phone app and an Uber limo comes to pick you up), in Washington, D.C., where it…
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Traffic Management Contract to Save $47 Million
by James A. Bacon Outsourcing management of Virginia’s five traffic operations centers will save about $47 million over the life of the six-year contract and accelerate the adoption of state-of-the-art technology and best management practices. So says Dean Gustafson, state operations engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation. In a presentation yesterday, Gustafson briefed the…
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Smarter Analytics for Smarter Roads
As information technology continues to penetrate traditional industry sectors like transportation, the innovations just keep on rolling in. The latest case in point comes from a San Francisco-based start-up, StreetLight Data, co-founded by Richmond native Laura Schewel. StreetLight Data combines a variety of data sources — wireless data, GPS navigation data, Census data — to…
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The Rise of Civic Tech
Call it digital cities, call it civic tech, call it what you will — information technology is transforming the way local governments deliver services. This brief video by Ben Hecht, CEO of Living Cities, gives a flavor. My favorite example he cites: The Boston Bump. Instead of dispatching engineers around the city to survey the…
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Another Step toward Smarter Highways
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has issued a $34 million contract to Pennsylvania-based TransCore to design and build an active traffic management system for Interstate 66. The contract will cover 34 miles of highway from Washington, D.C., to Gainesville, at the intersection of U.S. 29. Reports ITS International: The active traffic management system will…
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Swapping Smarts for Asphalt
Smart traffic lights are no cure-all for Virginia’s congested road network but VDOT increasingly regards them as part of the solution.
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Taxes and the Urban Mobility Revolution
by James A. Bacon Et tu, Hugo? Del. Tim Hugo, R-Centreville, has proposed eliminating Virginia’s motor fuels tax and replacing it with a 0.9% increase in the state sales tax, the Times-Dispatch reports today. That measure, combined with the allocation of an additional 0.5% of the sales tax to the Commonwealth Transportation Fund, would raise…
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The IT Revolution Cometh. Will It Passeth Virginia Transportation By?
by James A. Bacon The spread of smart phones and car navigators equipped with GPS technology is making it easier than ever to measure automobile traffic, and some transportation planners are putting the data to good use. In northern Spain, for instance, the Basque Traffic Control Centre is using GPS data from TomTom navigation systems…
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Coming Up: Smart Parking
Here’s a new wrinkle in the digital cities world: a smart phone application that tells you where the empty parking spaces are and how much they cost. Santa Monica, Calif.-based ParkMe has introduced an app that lets users find the the best bets for parking on a block-by-block basis, throwing in a rate calculator, “in-app”…
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Virginia’s Path to Digital Cities
by James A. Bacon Songdo, a city 40 miles from Seoul, South Korean, can easily generate a case of “thinking big” envy. The Songdo International Business District, being built from scratch, aspires to become “the world’s smartest, greenest city” and “the commercial epicenter” of Northeast Asia. It’s a 1,500-acre mixed-use project with 600 acres of…