Smart City Challenge Information Session 3 Transcript
The Sharing Economy, User-Focused Mobility, and Accessible Transportation
Thank you for standing by welcome to the traffic the Smart city challenge webinar at this time of participants are no listen only mode. If you would like to ask a question Chatman checkbox in the lower left-hand side of your screen. If you require assistance for star than zero I will turn the call over to Brian Cronin please go ahead sir.
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us in the third of a series of five webinars on the beyond traffic the Smart city challenge. Today's focus is on the sharing economy with the dive into user focused mobility accessible transportation and how we use connected vehicles and automated vehicles. I am Brian Cronin and I will start the presentation and we have the following distinguished speakers. Mohammed Yusuf Bob Sheehan and go way toward.
So the beyond traffic smart city challenge incurred cities to put forth their brightest ideas being as creative as possible looking at how we to address the challenges they are facing as a department has to identified beyond traffic. The Smart city challenge will address emerging transportation data applications can be integrated to address these challenges. We would like to demonstrate how advanced data and technologies and applications can be used to reduce congestion keep travelers safe protect the environment respond to climate change connect communities and support economic vitality.
The Smart city challenge was announced on December 7. We are using a very rapid delivery program looking to have proposals then on February 4. We would like to make awards in March and we would develop and provide funding to support concept development and planning activities for up to five Smart city challenge finalists. They would receive $100,000 agreements. We would then provide the opportunity for those five finalist to submit proposals to implement their demonstration and award them up to $50 million with $40 million from the federal government 10 million from the falcon foundation.
So how do we look at bringing technology together with different systems and services to provide benefits? Technology has the convergence will revolutionize transportation to improve safety and mobility. Connected vehicles automated vehicle service center of how we bring vehicles and infrastructure together to provide transportation services. Machine learning big data all bring mace types of data and information together and provide services such as mobility on demand looking at how we can improve mobility of travelers across the city's. We bring mace together and the opportunity to provide various benefits from what are the magnitude safety improvements reducing congestion emissions and will use providing barracks assess two jobs and reducing transportation costs while improving the accessibility and mobility for travelers.
So USDOT vision for Smart city. We recognized every city is unique and has its unique challenges attributes of opportunities. We are looking at each city to propose the demonstration tailored to their needs that his overall consistent with a broad vision of USDOT. USDOT vision is to Smart city challenges to the identify urban areas where advanced technologies are integrated into the city and play a critical role in helping cities and citizens address challenges. USDOT has identified control valve -- elements as they develop their proposed demonstration. We have identified these priorities these division elements and priority order.
Spell the beyond traffic smart city challenge has 12 different priority vision elements a highest our urban automation connected vehicles and intelligence-based infrastructures. Beyond that we move into the next year which looks at how you use some of the technologies and provide different services and approaches to urban transportation looking at urban focused mobility services arm and analytics delivery and logistics how we bring partnerships together to impact and about the strategies how we use the Smart electric vehicles how the connected involved citizen plays an active role in approving and using the transportation system. At the next priority level as a foundational element around architecture and standard security and smart land-use. Without I will turn it over to the speakers today to lead you through these different vision elements and I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Thank you for the information Brian as a reminder at the end of the presentation we will provide you with some additional information in the website where you can continue to receive information on the Smart city challenge. Now I will first walk through the agenda with you. We will start to discuss beyond traffic which is [ Indiscernible ] have led which is the genesis of the Smart city challenge. Then we will discuss things leading to an evolution of our transportation ecosystems. Then we will look discuss some additional factors enabling evolution and we will highlight examples of our current research initiative which supports smart city and then we will end with the conversation around changing perception of transportation.
At a high level the US DOT is changing the way of thinking and setting policies to ensure that we have a world-class transportation system in the future. One example is beyond traffic report and now the Smart city challenge. Beyond traffic is intended to drive discussion for stakeholders to have a conversation about the shape size and condition of the future transportation system and how it will meet the needs and goals of our nation for decades to come.
This slide illustrates some of the things documented in the report. Today we want to take the conversation one step further and engage you on what a smart city may look like in particular how shared use user focused mobility and accessibility are essential to a smart city.
Our transportation ecosystems is evolving they are many ways of doing business new demands on our infrastructure and new technological tools to take advantage of as we design our Smart cities of the future. US DOT sees a natural progression from traditional transportation to those that are smart utilizing technology leveraging new business models and focusing on customer needs to create an environment where demands are met seamlessly.
There are three main driving forces why new mobility concepts within the Smart city are critical to the future of our transportation system. The first is the number of older Americans which is readily increasing as we are witnessing now. Than second people who use transit services including the elderly, those with disabilities and low income individuals need improved personal mobility options. Finally Americans want mobility on demand. Studies and surveys of the millenniums have shown that they are choosing to take more transportation services for both convenience and cost reasons. Now I am turning the Mike's to Bob who will take over and review some enabling tech knowledge he solutions in the marketplace that enable smart city.
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. I think this is all the topics we are covering and then I will present now things I'm passionate about and I think this is a great opportunity to explore the Smart city challenge and the shift and mobility services. So for my part I will cover technology areas and some operational solutions that have emerged and continue to come on into the world to provide mobility and improvement in mobility. To start with what's look at the shared use economy. We are seeing new business models now we are seeing new business models coming we see these models where citizens are getting into what was typically seen at the private-sector business. We are saving Private. sectors seeing in the public sector responsibility and finally the public sector recognizing that challenge and of recognizing the potential improvements in service are now changing their role. So by doing that we see local regional state and federal legal regulatory issues will continually be challenged.
Within the shared economy we have connected involved citizen's. People are now connect it to the infrastructure connected to others we built on a series of research that looks out connect hippity and connected vehicles vehicles within the infrastructure. Infrastructure to people vehicles and pedestrians now we see connected citizens with each other we can use in the fall situational awareness for all citizens providers of service amount of smart city not just in transportation providers there by doing this we can provide contributing to benefits for all.
On demand service and right sourcing. So this is a great example of continuation of a shared use world built on ridesharing and now we see different things car sharing bike sharing we have on demand right services such as over something similar in left NUC improvement in ridesharing and carpooling Mason then done in the past and are more dynamic but not really technology driven approaches such as the casual carpooling approaches in Virginia in San Francisco Bay area. We see alternative transit services microtrends is an example of what the private sector is getting into using data to optimize the delivery of services for first mile, last mile and essentially completing better point-to-point service. We see it served in the courier network service where we can peer on demand passenger rights with different courier services.
Mobility of the service I think this is very important it is one of the foundational elements of our mobility on demand program this really is a powershift two transportation management mobility management in a way that the mobility manager doesn't have to be the provider there are many services available to provide improvements of mobility and accessibility for all. So examples of mobility of the service across Europe the combined systems that offer the available options for mobility and transportation again from private and public sector allowing the user to have access and optimize their trip and allow the system to also optimize the performance.
Foundational element is the payment area integrated payment services is a great example in public transportation is relevant in the new transportation environment context of payment systems. Public transportation has evolved from Cashin tokens to mobile technology. Throughout the history it is been the role to establish relationships with the customer and technologies are long this to develop more those payment systems become more flexible so does our transportation system. Barrel so data improvement integrated of data between providers public sector trends that we have freeway arterial system. I think one of the benefits of doing this we are reducing and starting to eliminate the obstacles for changing travelers behavior. How can we support the integration of the transit agency with a private sector type of share used service? How can we get a traveler to make that easier connection between two services?
I touched on travel behavior so this moves in two ways to implement travel behavior through densification various partnerships use of smart phone's location-based services agencies third parties are getting crowd sourced data. The passive user where people are opting in to services and making data available when they are receiving benefits from any particular application. So these we can take advantage or you can see a possibility of using that to game of fly in a way that people will use the approach and they give them opportunity for something else. We have seen and sent to taste approaches in different areas that offer an opportunity to shift the mode. In Los Angeles they did something where you have an incentive to use their service. By using the Silver line you earn credits and vice versa you are incentivized to use that transit service or the service that provides a particular -- improvements in management. Another example is the eco-mileage program reducing greenhouse gas global warming by improving energy efficiency and savings. Citizens can earn card points by using public transportation and other eco-friendly forms of transportation and you can get people to use eco-friendly. They conserve a particular benefit for them if they are late and they use transit service the entire week and they are rewarded and can have access to another mode that serves their needs at that time.
Monde response of parking management this came online the last five the last 5 to 7 years where they have demand response of parking. We see surged pricing with parking we see better wayfinding and navigation with an urban environment to reduce the circulation and improve the availability of service on the system. We see examples where we see tech knowledge he to provide better technology and accessibility we can use smart phones location data along with phone cameras. We can provide out amounted reality can provide assistance to a user in a complex situation or an area they are not familiar with. Local services that they want to like emerging services are offering other things such as amenities and anything within that fireman.
Intelligent sensor-based infrastructure. Several cities are deploying centers for example traffic poles environmental data. We are getting constant data from these centers which goes back to the citizen statement where we are getting fall situational awareness about our system. So at this point I reviewed some of the factors that are encouraging development across cities in the US. I appreciate the opportunity to review a few of these technology and tools with you and now alternative back once again to Gwo-Wei Torng .
Thank you Bob I am back. Now we would like to take the opportunity to introduce to you a few examples of USDOT research initiatives we believe relate to smart city. That include mobility on demand or MOD accessible transportation technology research initiative, mobility services for Americans integrated corridor management and connected vehicle programs and universal automatic community transport. When we go through the remainder of the webinar we will provide more detail as we walk through each of those with you.
Mobility on demand let's begin with a brief review of this important mobility on demand initiative with you. Mobility on demand brings together new on demand services like those we are familiar with and sourcing her new transit operations with bike sharing car sharing and the like. The third component if you look at the slide on the right-hand side the third component but certainly the most important in our view is a traveler. That is the orange part. Mobility on demand is it traveler centered approach to mobility mobility on demand promotes choices and personal mobility and optimizes the transportation system through tech knowledge he and innovative business practices
This slide shows one illustration or one example of mobility on demand landscapes. Essentially it is our interpretation that mobility on demand is to connect all mobility resources together to create an environment in which all travelers are empowered to make smart mobility decisions that not only work the best for themselves individually but collectively contribute to the desirable outcomes.
Next the backbone to mobility on demand and the new mobility ecosystem is the so-called mobility services for all Americans that develops interoperable mobile data across multiple service providers in Tran -- MOD. This focuses on a human service transportation services . Transit demand response transportation by attempting to optimize service and operations through travel management for national centers essentially MSAA is to combine integration and technology integration to empower as you also note one common theme between MOD in this MSAA is travelers or customers on the left-hand side.
At this point I would like to give the Mike to Mohammed Yousuf. He will talk in more detail about accessibility.
Thank you it is my honor to be with you all. As already mentioned about sharing economy user centric mobility my focus of discussion will be on accessible transportation and relating user needs of travelers to those two topic areas. I believe this can revolutionize the way transportation systems and services are offered to travelers. This provides associated services connecting the travelers to job options to getting to their doctors appointments and allowing even [ Indiscernible ] to stay at their home so allowing the agent -- aging. As we look into user needs with those with disabilities there are three groups and that makes a big chunk of our society. It is actually a bigger challenge than we realize so to look at the numbers people with disabilities are persons with disabilities they comprise 20% of the US population. Among people with disabilities are three times those without disabilities. I do not know if you can see -- when you combine people with disabilities with those wounded warriors the American veterans are coming back from the recent wars roughly there are 31 million of them and 45% of them are eligible to apply for disability benefits. Our US population is aging this is something also highlighted in the beyond traffic report and [ Indiscernible ] the aging population roughly 43,000,000 now but it is expected to go to 72,000,000 x 20 30.
Over the last two years the ATTRI has done a study or approach to understand the user needs. This happened over three separate webinars one in person workshop and over 1000 people participated and we had a lot of feedback. To summarize the barriers that we heard from our stakeholders include lack of or inaccessible signage maps landmark identifiers and people who work in the industry know what this says but I think in the new world of smart cities there are a number of ways these barriers can be handled. They also identified evocation difficulties in consistent pathways issues with infrastructure is some of the big billers -- barriers. We heard amenability information such as restaurants shelter these came up again and again. Transportation information something that could connect the service providers and those who are writing the Metro access bus are connecting the caregivers and giving information these are areas of possible connect the cities connected automation [ Indiscernible ]. Security and emergency information how do you communicate information to someone who is blind or hearing-impaired. Other identified issues with technology as we are aware of had to do with training to use an awareness of new technology the idea of being you are not going to get someone to use something new but there has to be training affordability performance and quality of the new systems.
So as part of ATTRI there was another technology practice on key technology areas not only with the transportation field but also looking into other domains in the idea was to see what innovations and practices could be modeled as we move forward with research. These included wayfinding and navigation solutions assistive technologies appeared with intelligent transportation systems, automation and robotics, data integration and enhanced human services transportation. I want to pause and go back and highlight each of the things we saw within these areas. Integration of mapping both for indoors and outdoor usage even indoors would you be able to have maps for your personal use versus public use. Can you [ Indiscernible ] there was a discussion on finding unique or new data sets for allowing navigation both for indoor and outdoor applications. In the case of IT as an assistive technologies remote assistance came up. [ Indiscernible ] but be able to provide access again connect thing them to their caregivers and family members and be able to know where they are. In the area of automation and robotics with first mile last mile transit can you convert better routes to fix those but also can we use robotics in new ways which hasn't been done so far in the transportation industry such as can you use assistive robots as active companions and provide human services and transportation services? In the area of data integration there was a lot of discussion on coming up with the idea of pushing information and polling information to a live -- allow for pairing of services both for the travel to airports [ Indiscernible - heavy accent ] and in the area of human services transportation there was discussion on how do you use these technology allotment to allow for transfer with people with disabilities. There was a discussion on using one clear system across different modes. There was discussion on using this new emerging area of using mobile services to allow one system for different users LB added division of impairment to hearing to cognitive disabilities.
So when identifying possibilities and number of research points were considered but something I want to share with you here is that transportation plays a big role for travelers with disabilities and that is true for even older people and veterans from recent wars and in a number of ways transportation could help to integrate them to help them regain jobs and go to school and also help aging populations sustain -- stay in their homes. 76% when we inquired we found a big number again like 76% of people with disabilities say transportation plays a big role especially if they are in the job market and one third of them say that it is actually a significant problem in accessing jobs. When we looked at the targeted population of people with disability veterans with disabilities and older adults we came across for functional areas and I think as you look for tech knowledge he solutions there is a variation of how you could design solutions to meet the functional needs of those with vision mobility hearing in cognitive and cognitive is going to be in my understanding the most difficulty thing to be tackled with technology because if you have someone with vision and hair meant either you have low vision or no vision but in the case of cognitive disabilities you have to deal with the spec drum either you have no cognition or some cognition and how do you design solutions around those that's a big topic. I think that would be true for connected their smart cities is along with looking into the kinds of research that the USDOT has been saying and funding within the IETF area within the wireless area and such there is an opportunity to leverage technologies from other areas and find synergies with robotics find artificial intelligence and I want to emphasize accessible data because you will see the needs for the community is very different than the needs that I've seen so far.
So this leads to a point where we are now looking into learning from the technologies from the stakeholder user needs of the past and we had a request for information on this. We broadened these and included a workshop that led to the creation of the foundational integration. We want to say in all application areas being considered in the future we wanted this to be an element of concentration because if you bring in concentrations your systems and solutions will be seamless across different modes in different cities. The idea is if you have a person with a disability riding a bus in Chicago he should have access to the same information on the display or the smart phone to display. If they were to go to San Diego we hope they have the same experience and can access the same information. So the four areas we consider to be of most importance in foundation concentration include the standard accessible data platform a platform where you can define all the accessibility needs for different users, different disability types in different modes of transportation. Can you use universal design is a standard [ Indiscernible ] how the buses are looks like to including the indoor environment. So Bob and [ Indiscernible ] touched on payment systems. These include integrated payment systems and that is something all travelers can use. We want to leverage existing emerging Tech knowledge ease robotic devices -- can we use APIs from them and create new applications and new layers on top of that the ideas not to make something totally new but deliver it is possible with what is out there.
Then at the bottom of the slide you see the four application areas and we -- if you could have these four elements that is something that people with disabilities would need and those have way to do with smart wayfinding and navigation system pretrip can't surge -- various uses including a community navigator something that people with different disabilities can use.
Pretrip virtualization services the idea is to use ground sourcing and other technology elements to [ Indiscernible ] the idea is can you create a street like application where someone with a cognitive disability can have device [ Indiscernible ] and this is something that could come as a person who could help throughout their journey.
A shared use automation and robotics looking into the use of automation to create solutions [ Indiscernible ] as we see from several other things in the neighborhood but can you really extend the user to replace some better transit groups in the future. Safe intersection crossing again connect thing research to provide a level of connectivity throughout the travel for pedestrian safety and telling those the vehicles and traffic signal timing.
So I have the universal design this slide is to bring the emphasis in the focus back on to the foundational concentration. The title should have included other options but the idea is as I said to find the solutions that give you the same experience across different travel modes for different disability types in different cities.
With this I will briefly talk about the universal automated community transport a new project that has recently started at the USDOT . This is something that is going to look into creating a shared use community transit for not only travelers with disabilities older adults and also for people who want to use the service for the recreation use you know someone who wants to go to a shopping mall within the neighborhood and that could be summoned when someone needs that. As I said if the new project. We are going to have an operational concept that looks into these different transportation modes. At this point I want to hand it back over to Bob she had to go over some more slides.
Thank you. I am going to continue with technology and build on everything we talked about and bring us to what we are getting to which is the connected Smart city. So we talked about connected citizen using different technology mobility on demand loads of transportation technology. In addition to that is connected vehicles. Using infrastructure vehicles in anonymous data. We have the potential through that data transmitted to the SRC or other wireless media we can improve real-time data traffic from trend that transportation data parking data travelers stated their needs go back to the incentive that type of data to overall make it easier to manage mobility and provide better mobility services. Connected vehicles and travelers allow travelers to make better more informed decisions allowed transportation providers including user services to improve their business models and they are more aware of what the travelers need.
This is the slide on managing infrastructure through integration I think the important part is integration. There are two mobilities we have our supply side demands that. We recognize the number of stakeholders involved in the system and the need to actively manage assistive manage all the individual parts as a common unit. That's one of the most important things we looked at in the past research project on integrated -- looking at the fundamentals of all parties sharing responsibility for managing systems in this we look at managing mobility it is now a better way to describe it in the system is expanding.
What that means we have three basic levels of integration this is obvious one of the most important things is the top-level bringing those institutional integration to the forefront. The business model that institutional integration. Public-private understanding the public relationships between trans agencies in the shared use services. Operational approaches how do they relate make decisions together. The integration of the technical side talk about data payment systems Bickle to infrastructure the accessible tech ologies the data from all parties into one unit which allows that situational awareness so we can make a better decision so all parties can make a better decision.
We see connected vehicles with the opportunity for transformative operations recently we participated in a mobility element where we tried to see how shared use is disrupting how we are operating how we are really challenging that model and attacking that paradigm shift up mobility as a service. So we have seen in the past where we had our hobby system and we recognize transportation we built RTS and went into intelligent transportation systems and we progressed and realized we need to bring the transit in the highway network operations together explicitly tied hand-in-hand. We recognized over the last 10 or so years on what is called management operations we built on that with connect to an automated vehicle so now we are having a natural evolution to integrated dynamic transportation in the connected society. We are shifting from a system the system is changing. It is changing and now we are connected society in a connected Smart society.
Now we can envision that connected everything in that smart city environment many things are about to be automated our wirelessly connected. Connected things will enable us to understand transportation differently and better. It provides powerful or data information for personal mobility. The demand for personal mobility is giving rise to mobility consumers and people want visibility on demand. So I think and hopefully you can see in our programs today in the past webinars and you will see this and upcoming webinars that we are excited to be here were excited to make the presentation we are excited with the smart city challenge and we hope you have enjoyed your time with us today and we encourage you to send us your vision of a smart city. While we are finishing here this afternoon with her presentation I will pass it back to Brian for a few closing words and reminders.
Thank you Bob we wanted to close with reminding everybody that we have actually to more webinars. We will go on Monday and talk about the application and selection process that will be out 1:00 and then we posted to the same site where you find the provisional ones a webinar on January 6 on urban freight and logistics. With that we are very happy that you participated in the webinar today and we will handed over Dick a Q&A.. We like to do this through the chat function so if you have any questions for the speakers about the topics we covered today are more broadly about the program we would be happy to answer those.
I see some questions coming online and once a pop-up we will read the questions in the group will discuss and come up with the best answers. So Bill says what guidances there for personal rapid transit networks?
I can share my thoughts with respect to personal rapid transit. I think in the context of the smart city challenge we leave it up to the cities to determine. Earlier in one of the slides we had when I said we have an illustration of different mobility on demand element if you wish in the PRT would be one of the elements. It's up to the city to pick and choose a combination of those elements and that should make the best sense to them and serve their needs and be proposed as such. As far as guidance I do not think with particular guidance necessarily for this purpose.
Know by what we see is PRT is part of the natural evolution in a rapid transit to argue automated transit networks where you take the guideway from a system to some of the automated networks we see for example the city mobile two in Europe so I think there is some documentation for city mobile to. If there is a need to get some documentation and guidance from the other deployments we can look into that. I know DART is bringing some of this together so that is great question and I will do my best to follow up and see what is available.
Pete Gould I hope I pronounce that correctly can you walk through the requirements that private-sector partners would have to meet to be part of the city the smart city challenge?
This is -- we do not have separate requirement beyond what is being advertised. Sarah is there anything you want to add?
I would say for the vision there it is that applicants should simply provide their vision and if there is a need for changes or requirements they could melt that as a need in that vision narrative. We would consider those things is necessary.
I had trouble hearing that so your statement was they should present their vision and touch on some of the requirements that they are -- and challenges they are facing. Is that correct?
Yes if there is any regulation or local requirement that need to be changed in their opinion they can note that the vision for consideration.
Okay there was a follow-up to that. In other words by America are examples of that.
Yes regulations in place are required there is no waving of regulations at this point for [ Indiscernible ]
Are some other people putting in some questions?
Brian is offering feedback that we have the webinar presentations are on the website I believe you can see that on the chat box.
So Peter from Portland Oregon is there an interest in hearing that grants team with other initiatives like FTA smart starts etc.?
I think that is another question for Sarah because -- or Brian to address overall.
This is Brianne on the weather you also consider trying to link small starts or other funding source programs so right now the notice and the funding opportunity is available for my TS resources. What bidders propose to use in addition to try to leverage their bid provide additional resources is up to them. We are looking to understand people's visions and what they think they could accomplish in their city and we have the 15 million we have identified as available on beyond that cities can propose what they wish. Right now there is no requirement for match.
Unless there is something to build off of that. We have another question. Let me scroll back up. Is there a metrics in the program based on energy consumed per unit of economic work accomplished energy per passenger mile per freight per mile?
One dancer and I will offer Brian to comment as well this is the something metrics that would be proposed or included by the cities. What are the metrics they are proposing within their smart city? To me I think that the most appropriate way to respond to that because there are different benefits and bearing benefits of how you integrate and how you define your smart city. Would you like to expand on that?
No I think I agree with Bob and I anticipate with the cities and proposals they will articulate sounds -- again I think it's up to the city to make the best sense to them and means of most took them and articulate their vision and a proposal. I do not necessarily think we have a set of metrics that would propose to use at least at this stage.
Know by the priority areas.
So another question from Stephen. About the connected involved citizens. On what the US chapter of the international Association for public participation and I'm concerned that citizens public involvement is being described as participation as a user and not as a cocreator and transportation planning. Who would be the point of contact for making this more clear for applicants?
I think this is where we take the San I will look and see what the best way to provide answers to questions for them.
I would encourage comments that we appreciate those comments if it can help us out to submit that request to clarify -- I believe it is the smart silly challenge@DOT.gov and then we will clarify that make that information available to all. That is a good comment.
Is there any aspect of selection criteria for energy self-reliance for example hyper Luper J Potts both expect to power their networks based on collecting the energy from collection built into the infrastructure?
This is the same answer I think from the previous question. I think it is similar to the question you had before. Is the metric selection criteria for what was proposed determined by the proposer and that is part of what that innovative proposal would be. I will ask Brian to step down here and answer this and questions like this.
Thank you I think as part of what we describe in the vision elements and we are asking folks to provide a high-level vision, the energy and electrification and the topic are part of one of the vision elements but we ask cities to explain what they want to do and we do take into account the capacity to do it.
Another question. I apologize I do not think I can pronounce your last name this is from firm. Is California considering applying in one of our key focuses is on equity and transportation investment, are there criteria are waiting given to equity considerations? I think that is the same answer that Brian just gave.
We did talk about equity as part of the goals when we went over the vision on one of the beginning slides.
Okay so the same thing looking at the vision elements. Thank you. The follow-up from that question pollution is relative to energy consumed. I agree. Another question from what I have researched there are only about 45 cities that qualify based on the population limits of 250,000 850,000 in the requirement that the city be at least 15% of the urbanized area. Does it sound correct?
I think it is a little larger than that but we are in the process of getting a lot of questions around that. What we have said is the qualified term is slightly off in that we do encourage everyone to apply and make their case. We have talked about this element as the desired characteristic and so should an area the slightly outside of these ranges are significantly outside of these ranges they need to look at the overall goals and objectives of the program and vision elements and look at the technical merit and put forward their idea for consideration in the department will take that into account.
Another question. Can you comment on how a cities application and vision could include private TMC and other 100% private mobility services given these services do not require any federal funding but would serve a key element in an overall system? Will cities get credit for the options in their applications or will the selection only consider the aspects that will receive grant funding? It really goes back to the 12 vision elements. I do not think -- again these are overarching questions although the topic is getting into a different question.
Brianna or Sarah I do not think that's an issue but I would like Sarah to step in here.
Okay. Can you speak up?
Can you hear me now?
We have technical merit evaluation criteria spelled out in the notice of opportunity in each application will go through a thorough review process so my recommendation would be we cannot speak to individual ideas because each application will go through every review process that includes many individuals reviewing at so I would refer you to the notice of funding opportunity for the vision elements in the evaluation criteria and then recommend you make your business decision and how you want to frame your vision narrative.
Okay I do not see any other questions. There are some more popping up.
While we wait for the other questions to come man I want to thank Bob and Mohammed and Gwo-Wei Torng for the presentation today. We have a presentation on Monday going through the notice of application and selection process. We have a few more minutes so we are more than happy to stay on the line and answer additional questions.
I think -- we definitely want to remind folks any questions or follow-up questions can be entered in the smart Salant -- smart city challenge at US -- Sandra just a comment in the previous webinar US DOT indicated that the desired qualifications are not requirements, therefore counties can also apply, is this correct?
I can take that. Counties can apply there is an eligibility requirement paragraph in the notice that makes it clear that eligibility for applicants include cities, counties, local governments transit authorities etc. A county can certainly apply however keep in mind that the desired characteristics related to population and density do apply to the city. The census designated location within that county. I guess the desired characteristics are just desired characteristics that will be evaluated as part of the technical merit and they are not requirements. The only requirement is that applicant to fall into one of the organization types filled out the notice which is what I said is a local government type entity.
Sarah don't go anywhere.
So the city -- so does the applicant have to be a city entity or could the application be from a nonprofit community group?
A non-profit community group would not be a prime applicant. There is a paragraph in the notice that spells out the prime applicant has to be a local governmental organization.
Thank you we have another one coming on. Now we do have a note we have the smart city challenge here about from the topics today we actually have a ton of material available to cover our presentations for mobility on demand and we are making more information available reports facts sheets and things like that from. So from the topic today that is available so contact us through email or you could contact any of the presenters today. A few more questions. Well all the questions received and answered via email also be posted online for all to benefit from?
The emails that are coming in will be consolidated into a Q&A to be shared if they are necessary to be shared with all. Some are just routine questions about where information as so all questions and answers will not be shared but we will consolidate port question and answers into a document to be shared on the website.
I see the last question can cities submit more than one application? Each application might be with different partners for different projects. You are certainly welcome to submit more than one application from the same entity if you would like to.
I guess I would give it a second for any other questions that might pop up on the chat. I do appreciate the questions coming in. The questions really help us understand what we are doing with our research programs. We have another question coming in.
Should the application identify the consultant that would do the work on behalf of the city?
At this point the vision narrative does not require identification of consultants or subcontractors. That would be in that detailed approach that would be requested in the phase 2 for those finalists that are select to. If you look closely at the instructions for the content of the phase 1 application due on February 4 you do not have to identify specifics like that. We will go through more of the application content in Monday's webinar as well.
Okay again we will give it just a little time for questions to come in. After that we will find the time to end the session.
I think we are approaching the point that we can say thank you for blogging on today and participating in the session. I want to thank everyone who provided answers here Sarah Brian Mohammed Gwo-Wei Torng and all folks who have supported development of the session. Okay second motion. Thank you very much we will end now. Any follow-up questions please via the website or send it in by me mail and contact any one of us. Thank you.
That concludes the conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
[ Event concluded ]