City OKS 2 transport projects

Columbus is preparing to launch Smart Columbus projects that will allow buses to communicate with traffic signals, and to build out transportation hubs where the public can plan trips throughout the city.

The Columbus City Council voted Monday to use a portion of its federal grant money on a pair of agreements for those projects.

Smart Columbus will reimburse the Central Ohio Transit Authority $297,360 to help pay for updating technology on buses under a memorandum of understanding the council approved Monday.

The council also agreed to spend $500,000 to hire Futurety, of the Northwest Side, and Paul Werth Associates, Downtown, to develop a marketing campaign for a new multi-modal trip-planning app for smartphones and “smart mobility hubs.”

The council approved both agreements as part of its 31-item consent agenda.

“This continues to provide an opportunity to use the resources from the Smart Cities grant to just explore an innovative approach to transportation,” Councilwoman Shayla D. Favor said.

COTA has spent about $1.2 million to update technology on 336 buses so that they eventually can communicate with other vehicles and infrastructure in corridors that Smart Columbus is calling its “connected vehicle environment.” The city’s funds will reimburse the authority for technology on 98 buses. COTA paid to outfit the remaining 238 buses.

The upgrades expand COTA’S capacity to interact with other technology in those corridors, which will include high-crash intersections along 5th Avenue, High Street and Morse Road.

“It’s prep work for when we’re able to start doing that,” said Jim Pullin, a COTA spokesman.

COTA already has signal priority on Cleveland Avenue, and the new technology will test whether its current vendor or the open-source equipment performs better, said Alyssa Chenault, a Smart Columbus spokeswoman. If COTA uses open-source equipment, it will more easily interact with the connected-vehicle environment as it expands, she said.

Smart Columbus will analyze data from the buses to determine whether signal priority is helping buses stay on schedule, she said. Similar upgrades will be used on ambulances, firetrucks and police vehicles to get signal priority in those corridors.

The new multi-modal trip-planning app for smartphones will link forms of transportation in one place where the public can pay for a trip that spans several vendors. Chenault said the trip-planning features of the app will launch in late August with up to eight transportation providers, but the public will have to wait until January to be able to use the app to make a single payment, which is then divided among the providers.

The smart mobility hubs are specially designated areas set up with a kiosk where people can access the trip-planning app even if they don’t have a smartphone or data plan. Most of the six hubs will be in northeastern Columbus.

Construction will begin this year, with full implementation scheduled by January, Chenault said.

“We know access to transportation is a big issue. We know mode shift is a heavy lift. So we are seeking communications and outreach support,” Chenault said.

Columbus won the

U.S. Department of Transportation’s Smart City challenge in 2016 and the grant funds that came with it. Columbus competed with cities around the country for $40 million in federal funding, plus a $10 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, to turn the city into a test case for transportation technology.