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Skip Descant

Skip Descant writes about smart cities, the Internet of Things, transportation and other areas for Government Technology magazine.

The city’s public-facing website is dedicated to COVID-19 resources for residents and businesses. Features include the mapping of available essential services and other timely data.
Three California cities have explored locating chargers for electric vehicles in the public right of way. The changes promise to help normalize zero-emissions vehicles across the state.
Private-sector researchers and officials with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) say that one or two weeks is not enough time to get a thorough understanding of the effects of greatly reducing traffic.
A new service geared toward closing first- and last-mile gaps for commuters, announced in Sacramento and Davis, will also collect vehicle data for autonomous advancements.
The Veloz electric vehicle forum, titled "Electric Transportation 2030: Policy, Power and Plugs"' brought together attendees from private, public and nonprofit sectors.
The state’s most populous city will station an electric-powered fire truck at its Hollywood station. It’s one of several moves city officials are making to cut carbon emissions.
The San Jose Digital Inclusion Fund is expected to generate $24 million over 10 years by collecting lease revenue from telecommunications firms. The first round of grants is about to hook thousands up to the Internet.
After four years in the public sector, San Jose’s chief innovation officer will join a Bay Area startup.
Metrolink, a commuter rail service in the Los Angeles metro area, has already been credited with eliminating more than 300 million vehicle miles from the region's notoriously clogged highways last year.
Four L.A.-area pilots will each receive $100,000 toward boosting zero-emission transportation. The initiatives aim to offer new modes of travel to underserved communities.
StreetLight Data, known for its use of travel metrics gleaned from mobile and other devices, has partnered with Siemens, a multinational technology company, to form a deep understanding of where EV infrastructure should be deployed.
A report by the International Council on Clean Transportation looked at the growth of the electric vehicle market across the U.S. It found that adoption is strongest in urban centers and along the East and West coasts.
Local Motors, which makes the Olli AV shuttle, will partner with both GoMentum, an enormous vehicle test site in the Bay Area, and AAA Northern California to further fine-tune connected-vehicle technology around small, electric shuttles, making the vehicles perhaps the most promising form of autonomous transportation in the near term.
As the experts see it, midsize cities are the ideal places to test and develop new ways of getting around. During a symposium in Sacramento last week, thought leaders discussed the issue and where strides could be made.
Collaboration between a Southern California land conservation nonprofit and a traffic analytics firm is paying off as officials get a better idea how many visitors are flocking to parks.
Seven Bay Area toll bridges will move away from accepting cash payments over the next several years.
As electric vehicle charging stations proliferate, so could the potential for cybercrime. A new report suggests a possible solution, and a state board will weigh another option later this month.
Digital replacements, capable of pinpointing caller locations and handling more data faster, are in the pipeline. The state is assisting various counties in their Next-Gen 911 projects in the form of funding and project management.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles heard comments on Thursday from industry, business and transportation planning officials and others, about new regulations that would set up testing of autonomous light-duty delivery vehicles.
The city is in the midst of one of the biggest IoT deployments in North America, involving cameras, microphones and sensors, that will help understand how people move through San Diego's streets.
With highly intelligent traffic signals on major 10-lane arterial roads, the county has been using cloud technology and edge computing to control the flow of traffic for the benefit of cars, bicycles and pedestrians.
The state has just 39 hydrogen refueling stations, but could have as many as 1,000 stations by 2030, enough to jump-start the little-known, but environmentally friendly, specialized electric-car market.
The Federal Aviation Administration has authorized a San Diego-area police agency to operate drones beyond the "visual line of sight."
Five winners will be selected during the Smart Cities Week conference April 15-17 in San Diego. Those cities will become part of the year-long Readiness Program to scale up smart city visions into reality.
In a new report, Los Angeles Controller Ron Galperin explores using remote sensing, mapping and data sharing to aid in cataloging and managing the city's urban tree population, which could decline 30 percent in the next 10 years without proper care.
The first self-driving shuttle has just launched at Sac State, and although it's for a three-month pilot, it’s likely here to stay. The electric, eight-passenger vehicles — which will be 3-D printed — will connect riders from a parking garage to classroom buildings.
Electric vehicle car-shares, charging ports and other pieces of the green mobility future may go unused in many communities if the projects fail to understand local needs or the communities the projects hope to serve.
Arizona is joining California in offering motorists the ability to upgrade their metal license plates to an electronic, digital version, opening the door to easily changeable plate numbers, messaging, and even a “find my vehicle” feature, thanks to the technology’s wireless connectivity. The plates are made in California, and the city of Sacramento is piloting a program using them on some city cars.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit system has released an upgraded trip-planning application that considers transit data from more than 30 transportation operators across nine counties in the San Francisco metro area, providing easy door-to-door travel.
The largest autonomous vehicle test site in the United States has been acquired by AAA of Northern California, Nevada and Utah, one of the most familiar car-club brands in the country.