Transportation Grants Promote High-Tech Gridlock Solutions

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DALLAS – Smooth flowing highways filled with self-driving cars could be the payoff from more than $15 million of new federal Smart Cities grants aimed at finding high-tech solutions to resolve transportation problems.

The transportation funding is part of an $80 million program of grants and investments in fiscal 2017 that will involve more than 70 cities and communities, the White House said in announcing the grants on Monday.

The program's grants also include nearly $15 million to help cities tackle energy and climate-change issues and more than $10 million for public safety and disaster response projects.

Cities will be the laboratories for innovative, technological solutions that could eventually solve fundamental challenges, President Obama said.

"If we can reconceive of our government so that the interactions and the interplay between private sector, nonprofits, and government are opened up, and we use technology, data, and social media in order to join forces around problems, then there's no problem that we face in this country that is not solvable," he said.

Self-driving vehicles are one of the gridlock-busting innovations being funded in the latest round of Smart Cities grants. The National Science Foundation is the lead federal agency for the grants.

Columbus, Ohio, was awarded the first $40 million from the Transportation Department's Smart City Challenge grant competition in June. The city was one of seven finalists for the federal grants.

Future motorists may find their commutes in self-driving cars to be restful rather than stressful and much less congested, said Jeff Zients, the director of the National Economic Council.

"Self-driving cars have remarkable potential to make a significant dent in the $160 billion worth of time and gas that Americans lose stuck in traffic every year, and the hundreds of hours each American spends each year driving," he said.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga will use the NSF grant to test whether an entire urban network of connected and autonomous vehicles can automatically cooperate to improve travel efficiency and be able to operate safely during severe weather.

The project team includes the city, the Electric Power Board, UT- Chattanooga, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Chattanooga's proposal was one of the unsuccessful finalists for the 2016 Smart City grants competition.

Autonomous vehicles on roadways, with advanced sensors in the pavement and on roadside signs, could be a way to make more efficient use of the existing pavement, said Kevin Comstock, Chattanooga's traffic signal systems engineer.

In Missouri, highway officials are seeking proposals to determine if there is revenue potential in "smart pavement" studded with sensors and components that could provide wireless network access to vehicles.

The evaluation will determine if the pavement can make roads sustainably self-funded through value-added wireless services for next-generation electric, connected, and autonomous vehicles, said Tom Blair, the project manager with the Missouri Department of Transportation.

"We want to see if interstate travelways can become a platform to generate revenue through the collection and transmission of technology and data services," Blair said.

Proposals are due Oct. 31, with the selection of a contractor expected in early 2017.

Self-driving cars may be on the horizon in Missouri and elsewhere, but a new survey released on Wednesday showed that many motorists are dubious of the technology.

The national study commissioned by Kelley Blue Book found that 51% of motorists prefer to have full control of their vehicles even if it is not as safe for other drivers. A safer roadway for all, even if it means they have less control over their own vehicle, is preferred by 49%.

Most motorists (62%) do not think they will live to see a world with only fully autonomous cars while 80% believe people should always have the option of driving themselves, Kelley Blue Book said.

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