Infrastructure bill boosts hopes for Georgia town, Qualcomm

After years of dragging its feet, the smart city movement found surer footing with the U.S. Senate’s recent passage of a $1 billion infrastructure bill that includes $500 million in smart transportation  tech grants over five years.

The bill still needs the approval of the House but has buoyed prospects for communities and some major technology infrastructure providers such as Qualcomm.

RELATED: Smart transportation tech grants part of massive Senate package

“I’m really excited about this [bill],” said Sanjeet Pandit, global head of smart cities and digital transformation at Qualcomm in an online interview with a small group of reporters. “We’ve had multiple queries from cities and infrastructure vendors and integrators over how to work with Qualcomm on this [opportunity]. This acts as a catalyst across multiple domains, including private networks for campuses, warehousing and coming up to intelligent traffic” projects.

Brandon Branham, chief technology officer for Peachtree Corners, a suburb of Atlanta, said the bill’s passage and the prospects it provides are a “culmination of things we’ve been working on for the last few years.” In addition to the potential for greater smart city investment by the feds in communities, “there’s really an accelerating of the thought processes of government coming together so that we’re not thinking individually…We saw a lot of hope in the bill’s passage.”

The bill includes provisions for EV charging infrastructure and connected vehicle pilots with the potential for both aspects coming together, at least eventually, he said. He envisions electric vehicle charging banks throughout his community.  The bill is “not just about roads but connected capability,” Branham added.

A provision for expansion of broadband also will help in one segment of the Peachtree Corners community as well, he said.

The Atlanta area is arguably benefiting more directly from the electric vehicle trend than some communities because SK Innovation is building two plants to make batteries for EVs in Jackson County, northeast of Atlanta, which are expected to employ 1,000 workers by year’s end and 2,600 by the end of 2023.

Peachtree Corners has already been beefing up a series smart city projects and will launch four autonomous shuttles on Aug. 27, partly to carry workers from hotels to offices. Robotic delivery options are being considered and the community is working with Georgia Tech on using aerial drones to improve safety.

 Testing is also underway for a variety of connected vehicle technologies, from V2X to V2I and Vehicle-to-pedestrians. (V2P)  The V2P trial may be the most interesting because of the challenges of sending vehicle messages to smartphones held by pedestrians as they cross roadways. 

Engineers setting up V2P must worry about channel congestion when a crowd of smartphone users is on the same network, as well as positional accuracy and the drain on smartphone batteries, said Jim Misener, global V2X ecosystem lead for Qualcomm.

“Why we’re so interested in the infrastructure bill is that it converges police with funding toward connectivity and our vision,” Misener said. “Connectivity is important for safety,” Misener said. “The infrastructure bill portends lots of things happening with tech. We’re pretty excited for cars and all road users.”

Misener said whatever happens in Congress with the infrastructure measure intertwined with $3.5 trillion in spending for social services and other programs “might take a while but to me it’s going to happen…with some bumps, but the road leads to a good place.”

Branham said cities and communities have long seen that they can’t build smart transportation projects on their own.  The infrastructure bill is not just about spending but also has provided a reminder to the private sector and governments at various levels to work together.

“We can’t do it alone,” he said. “Government as operated has to change. As we see citizens evolve, they want government involved and all the partners together. It takes a group effort. Cities are starting to think differently and have been forced to in the last few months with Covid. The greatest innovation often comes out of our hardest times.”

RELATED: Peachtree Corners, Georgia, deploys C-V2X with Qualcomm for safety, traffic flow