Smart City Challenge: Evaluation and Selection of Finalists

City Attributes

Some attributes of the ideal Smart City Challenge candidate:

• Mid-sized city with a population between approximately 200,000 and 850,000 people within city limits as of the 2010 Census;
• A population density typical of a mid-sized city using 2010 Census data;
• Represents a significant portion (more than 15%) of the overall population of its urban area using 2010 Census data;
• An established public transportation system;
• An environment that is conducive to demonstrating proposed strategies; and
• Leadership and capacity to carry out the demonstration throughout the period of performance.

Technical Merit

The Government will evaluate applications based on the following technical merit criteria which are contained in the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO):

• Degree that the proposed city and demonstration site align with the USDOT’s Desired Characteristics, relevant to: (i) population size, (ii) population density, (iii) population share of urbanized area; (iv) an existing public transportation system, (v) environment conducive to demonstrating proposed strategies; and (vi) continuity of committed leadership and capacity to carry out the demonstration throughout the period of performance, (vii) commitment to integrating with the sharing economy; and (viii) commitment to making open, machine-readable data accessible, discoverable and usable by the public to fuel entrepreneurship and innovation.
• Demonstration of a sound, innovative, integrated, and holistic vision of the Applicant’s Smart City program consistent with the USDOT’s goals and twelve vision elements as defined in Section A.
• Extent that the Applicant’s vision and goals address issues identified in Beyond Traffic 2045.
• Likelihood of success in implementing the demonstration, including commitment from public and private sectors, and technical capability to perform.

The Government will then select the estimated five applications that are considered the most advantageous to the Government based on the evaluation of technical merit.

The Secretary of Transportation is the official responsible for final award selections.

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