Smart Cities to Watch Part 2: Denver and Richmond

April 24, 2019 by Leave a comment

By Rachel Eckert, SLED Manager

In my last blog post, I looked at smart cities initiatives in Boston and Atlanta. This time, we’ll take a look at what’s happening in two more forward-thinking cities: Denver and Richmond.

Before we do that, however, it’s worthwhile to revisit the three things you’ll need to keep in mind as you build an ongoing relationship with decision-makers in those cities:

Align your solutions to each city’s goals. To become a long-term service provider in the smart cities landscape, you need to show that your technology can help provide better, more efficient services.

Tie your technology to the delivery of citizen services. Technology doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Make sure that you can explain how your technology can improve services to citizens and the value it brings to the city.

Strategic partnerships are key. Smart cities need to technologies to integrate with other platforms and applications. Partnering with vendors that provide complementary applications and platforms will offer an integrated solution that city decision-makers will find compelling. Read more of this post

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Are E-Scooters the Future of City Transportation?

December 6, 2018 by Leave a comment

By Rachel Eckert, SLED Consultant

Electronic scooters seem to be just about everywhere these days, having appeared almost overnight. Companies such as Bird and Lime have placed these dockless e-scooters in cities around the country, in some cases successfully, in others with much resistance.

E-scooters can offer cities a way to meet environmental goals and reduce city congestion by reducing the number of cars on the roads — if incorporated into an integrated smart transportation plan in combination with other transit options. The apps these e-scooters leverage and the GPS signals they track can easily be integrated into existing traffic monitoring systems to provide a more complete picture of real-time traffic.

This new transportation option has not been met with open arms in every city. In fact, some cities have confiscated and impounded e-scooters after they have been deployed without city permission. Other cities have made pre-emptive actions banning the e-scooters. E-scooters appear to be facing similar city regulatory problems that ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft faced in the past.

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3 ways to be part of smart transportation

June 20, 2017 by Leave a comment

Rachel Eckert Rachel Eckert, SLED consultant

Transportation is increasingly becoming more connected as part of ongoing smart cities/states initiatives. States are connecting transit and working on multi-modal systems to facilitate easier and quicker commutes that efficiently move people and goods throughout a region.

This requires a great deal of data, compelling state and local governments to look to the private sector to develop technology that can collect, store, analyze and visualize that data. This information can then be turned into things like mobile applications that allow users to purchase tickets for buses and other transit through one streamlined application.

Here are three ways state and local governments could be utilizing this data:

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