“We’re looking forward to launching several pilot projects, including smart parking, smart streetlights and smart trash and recycling in the Southwest Downtown redevelopment district in the coming year, and foresee that area being a place to explore a range of smart technologies that could eventually scale across the community,” Waters says.
Early Smart Cities Projects Grew After Business Input
In the initial plan developed with the consultant, Colorado Springs identified 11 smart city projects it wanted to tackle. As the city has continued down the road toward becoming a smart city, that plan has evolved, with projects added to that initial list. For example, based on interest from private sector communications companies, the city has put 5G and small-cell communication toward the top of the list.
“Small cell and 5G weren't initially identified, but due to some circumstances with the private sector being interested in making Colorado Springs a 5G city, we've definitely shifted some of the focus to work on that project, so I think it was a great starting point,” Trujillo says. “We are getting pretty active in that space, and there are some telecommunications companies that are very interested in working with us in deploying small cells and 5G. That’s going to have a significant amount of density in the future.”
Most of the Southwest Downtown projects are underway at varying levels, with some still in the design or ideation phase while others are in the request for information or request for proposal stage. Still others, such as smart lighting, are close to actual implementation in the Southwest Downtown test bed, with plans to extend them farther.