Joanna Wadsworth, Program Manager, City of Las Vegas
In Las Vegas, the downtown area has been designated as our Innovation District, an incubator for smart city technologies aimed at promoting and adopting new transportation infrastructure and mobility technologies. After looking at trends a year ago and conducting a study called the Mobility Master Plan, we recognized that we had to design mobility choices that work for our biggest future populations: retirees and the younger generation (as millennials have expressed an interest in ride-share and car-share options over the normal car-centric model). With a 26 percent population increase expected by 2025, these mobility challenges have to be addressed right away. Establishing the Innovation District was a way for us to test our ideas and gather data.
The overarching goal of our smart cities venture is to create a safe, convenient transportation system that has mobility choices for visitors and residents. The official designation of Downtown Las Vegas as our ‘real life laboratory’ signified tremendous support from management; the mayor and city council support our ventures, and they are willing to provide financial backing for our projects. Here are a few pilots that we have run or which are currently underway.
8 Transportation Pilot Programs from Las Vegas
The following projects represent the range of mobility topics we have been testing in the Las Vegas Innovation District.
1. Strengthening Communication Systems
The city already has a robust fiber optic system focused on monitoring traffic, traffic signal coordination, CCTV camera surveillance, and other things. As part of our project, we are going to be deploying a second fiber optic network to focus on smart city sensors. We are also working to make a more robust public Wi-Fi as well as a private Wi-Fi system.
2. Smart City Sensor Solutions
In this project, we are deploying sensors in the field that will take away the manual work of counting and give us real-time data on things like pedestrian traffic volume by time, day and month. This eliminates manual work and helps us make better traffic engineering decisions because we have both real time and historical data on which to base those decisions.
3. Environmental Sensors
These sensors are helpful because they not only track environmental conditions but also give us data to evaluate programs. For example, we are currently adding trees and landscape to streets that are overwhelmingly city scape. These sensors will give us data to show actual (not just theoretical) benefits such as temperature and air quality improvements.
4. Smart Infrastructure
We are also testing a range of infrastructure; as we find use cases, we deploy the right sensor and evaluate the data. For example, we are looking into parking management solutions, and also use trash can sensors that will tell us when it is time to mobilize a crew for trash pickup.
5. Go Vegas App
The IT department is currently creating an app to put services and information at the fingertips of residents and visitors. A great aspect of this app is that it has been designed as a two-way communication system where we can also draw information from the people using the app. For example, we can learn things like where they are visiting and what services they are using.
6. Connected Corridors
In the Connected Corridors project, we are planning to install 24 DSRC radios within the Innovation District. This will allow us to test things such as AV communication, pedestrian safety, and traffic safety.
7. GENIVI Alliance Connected Car Pilot
Working together with the GINIVI Alliance, a non-profit organization, we are outfitting up to 100 city fleet vehicles with an interface server and a GPS unit. The device will provide information to the driver, including warnings for speeding, when a pedestrian is in the crosswalk, when they approach a bus stop or a bus is loading/unloading passengers, and alerts for traffic condition. This is also a two-way communication system, as the device will feed us information such as location, speed, and fluctuations in the driving of the car. This data can help us evaluate how roads are operating and if there are areas of the city that experience operating issues, such as slowdowns on a particular section of a road.
8. Navya ARMA Driverless Shuttle
The first pilot of our driverless shuttle has already been conducted and about 10,000 people road per vehicle. We are currently looking into a second pilot where the shuttle will also be connected to the traffic signals.
The pilots we have run so far have been fun and exciting. We carefully watch incoming data to evaluate the success of programs and to plan future pilots. The cumulative information will allow us to scale up and design the mobility options required to meet the needs of our future citizens and visitors. In our experience, technology is further along than we anticipated and the public is willing and looking forward to utilizing it.