Smart Cities Dive 2022 Outlook

Cities needed to adapt to tremendous challenges in 2021. Leaders faced increasingly dangerous driving behavior, extreme weather events, tense political climates and rising crime rates in addition to the ongoing, and constantly changing, COVID pandemic. 

Despite the past year's many obstacles, some cities made progress in becoming more sustainable and equitable places to live by increasing investments in cycling and electric vehicle infrastructure, piloting free public transportation, and continuing to help close the digital divide. Moving into the new year, local leaders say they are likely to continue to focus on those initiatives, as well as on cybersecurity, infrastructure and climate resiliency. 

Smart Cities Dive asked readers to share how they think cities will evolve in 2022. Here's a selection of responses we received: 

The following responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Data and technology will help close the digital divide

"In 2022, we anticipate cities — now more tech-savvy than ever — will have an increased focus on using technology to improve equity for city residents, with a particular emphasis on bridging the digital divide that separates Americans with access to high-speed internet from those without.

We expect that data teams who’ve focused on outreach efforts to assist residents in understanding the benefits of wearing masks and getting vaccinated will leverage the lessons they have learned to create new outreach efforts to expand broadband access, broadband subsidies for low-income users, online literacy programs, and other digital equity efforts.

These teams will leverage both first-party city data sources, open [government] data sources (like FCC data), data modeling and open-source technology to identify digital divide access and outreach via maps and dashboards. Importantly, they'll rely more than ever on technology to show progress against these equity initiatives.”

— Clare Epstein, vice president of public sector at Civis Analytics

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Cities will need to improve efficiencies at the curb

"Even as we return to life outside of our homes, it's clear that online shopping behaviors and demands for at-home delivery are here to stay. Cities will need to implement the technologies and policies that mitigate the congestion and pollution challenges spurred by increased commercial vehicle activity—or risk falling behind. From [New York City] to Omaha, we're beginning to see cities of all sizes explore curb management solutions that will only grow in popularity throughout 2022."

— Jordan Justus, CEO of Automotus

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Cities will make more bold climate commitments 

"Cities are going to increasingly be at the forefront of driving the fight against climate change, with more bold commitments like [that from] the commitment from the city of Ithaca, New York, to decarbonize 100% of its buildings by 2030. To achieve these ambitious and essential goals will require the end of piecemeal actions and a move towards integrated and packaged solution sets with built-in financing." 

— Kate Frucher, managing director at The Clean Fight 

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The circular economy will take hold in transportation  

“Right now, entrepreneurs are at the forefront of creating a circular economy, with new technologies that reduce packaging and textile waste ... In 2022, our cities will start to see those circular economy methods transferred to the linear transportation industry. This means we’ll see circular design and production through modular design and the use of low-carbon circular materials, circular use through the increased utilization of vehicles, specifically EVs, and circular retirement with a shift from maintenance and planned obsolescence to collection, remanufacturing, and recycling.”  

— Micah Kotch, managing director at URBAN-X

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Cybersecurity defenses will need to grow

"From ransomware attacks on school systems and hospitals to threats on critical infrastructure, state and local IT leaders are under immense pressure to build strong cyber defenses against bad actors. Organizations should focus on data protection, including backing up systems routinely, reinforcing basic cybersecurity awareness and education, and revisiting cyber incident response plans often."

— Mike Wiseman, vice president of public sector at Pure Storage

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Ransomware attacks will increase

"In 2021 we saw that ransomware can be both wildly successful and devastating (i.e., the attacks on Colonial Pipeline and Kaseya), in part because adversaries found a way to be highly efficient in their attacks – they can keep costs low and take advantage of a repeatable operating model. Because this model has become so effective, malicious actors will only accelerate their focus on ransomware in 2022.

Part of the reason why ransomware attacks have been so pervasive is because of the ability to exchange large sums of money without traceability. Until we eliminate or regulate the cryptocurrency economy, we will keep seeing the rise of ransomware into 2022 and beyond.” 

— Andrew Rubin, CEO of Illumio

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Technology advances will foster stronger trust and civic participation

"Smart city technologies deployed in communities did not traditionally result in more connected communities, where the beneficiaries of these advances [understand and trust those technologies], due to a fracture between IoT deployment and public participation and feedback into that process. 

The pandemic, however, directly resulted in rapid modernization in customer experience for public services. The ecosystem is now enabled with new solutions like omnichannel communications and enhanced data insights that before were unattainable. As a result, we are going to finally see smart city technologies that deploy with next-generation, 311-style services built with newly trusted and compliant citizen engagement technologies that empower communities to understand and shape development from the start, rather than feel imposed upon by sensors that the community doesn’t always understand and can’t always see the value in."

— Justin Herman, global head of public sector at Twilio

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Cities will upgrade infrastructure to be more resilient

"As cities begin to recover from the pandemic, increased focus will be placed on preparation for natural disasters, climate events and other issues by investing in technology that makes cities run more efficiently and seamlessly, no matter the situation. Cities need to make sure citizens have access to services [that could range] from alternative energy sources to community-based Wi-Fi programs."

— Matthew Britt, general manager of smart cities & communities at Honeywell Building Technologies

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E-bikes and shared mobility will continue to advance

"I predict the continued rise of the connected e-bike, which will create pressure to build out safe infrastructure. Improved and cheaper battery tech and small electric motors will also create new form factors in the (very) lightweight electric vehicle space. We will see better quantification of shared mobility's carbon reduction, impacting policies and infrastructure investments. We might start seeing web3 tech deployed in shared mobility systems."

— Benjie de la Peña, CEO of the Shared-Use Mobility Center

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EV charging infrastructure will grow and build resilience 

"As more consumers adopt electric vehicles, we will see a move away from charging at home, as most people do not live somewhere they can charge. There will be more emphasis on ubiquitous public charging locations where people are already going, like the office, retail spaces, the park, etc.

The impacts of electricity grid failures stemming from natural disasters and extreme weather will also become recognized as a significant vulnerability. So, more emphasis will be placed upon off-grid, locally generated and stored electricity, particularly for EV charging. Additionally, grid capacity will be recognized as a choke point that will largely be solved by smaller microgrids and other off-grid solutions."

— Desmond Wheatley, CEO of Beam Global 

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Wireless power will become prevalent 

"Integrating wireless power into buildings and infrastructures will not only allow for reduced wiring and maintenance costs but will also enable consumers to power their smart homes and personal gadgets. IoT sensors in these devices could track important data such as air quality, temperature, consumption of resources, health and activities around the city, allowing for streamlined analysis and improvements to be made sooner.

Smart cities have the ability to use data and technology to transform municipalities into efficient, productive and environmentally sustainable hubs. Establishing smart cities with wireless power will reduce battery and electronic waste by increasing product lifetimes, making harmful batteries obsolete and enabling a more sustainable power source." 

— Hatem Zeine, founder and president and CTO of Ossia and creator of Cota Real Wireless Power

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Libraries should be a central resource hub

"[In 2022,] public libraries should be the hub for rebuilding communities (and maybe a return to civic/civil discourse), workforce development, entrepreneurship, and positive social change and advancement. Libraries are the best place for free and open access for everyone to books, resources, programming, bridging the digital divide, raising knowledge, and fact-checking — library workers are better than the Internet for that."

— Adam Zand, president and co-founder of The Library Land Project

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Here’s the good news: With federal relief funds and the $1 trillion infrastructure legislation that passed last year, cities will have new resources to tackle challenges such as making public transportation more equitable and accommodating growing numbers of electric vehicles hitting the streets. If the Build Back Better bill becomes law, additional financial resources could help cities reduce greenhouse emissions and continue to grow the momentum around decarbonizing their building stocks. 

The bad news is that many serious issues cities have been facing in the past two years remain or have gotten worse. City leaders are grappling with the rising cost of housing, which has left many financially insecure. They are adapting to worsening and more frequent extreme weather events such as record-breaking heat, wildfires, winter storms and hurricanes. They are looking for new workers who can fill the many vacant public transportation jobs. And they are addressing rising crime rates amid calls for policing reform. 

With the input of experts and researchers, Smart Cities Dive dug into these topics to look at how eight of the biggest trends facing cities will play out in 2022. 

Crime and policing will continue to be top of mind for local leaders

From Philadelphia to Tucson, Arizona, over two-thirds of the country’s 40 most populous cities experienced higher rates of homicide in 2021 compared with the year prior, in many cases surpassing or nearly reaching record highs, according to CNN. As a result, public safety will likely remain a top priority for local leaders in 2022. 

Crime and policing were key issues in many high-profile mayoral elections last November. Some of the winners promised to increase police presence in cities to mitigate crime, a stark contrast to the nationwide calls just a year prior to defund police departments. 

Meanwhile, other local leaders and their constituents continue to advocate for and implement various police reforms, particularly pushing for stronger police oversight as some cities respond to the spike in crime by increasing police budgets.

Transit agencies will continue to focus on equity

The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the national racial awakening over the past two years, brought equity issues to the fore in public transportation, where high fares and cutbacks in service have disproportionately affected low-income communities and communities of color. 

Some transit systems reduced or eliminated fares for all riders or only for specific groups, such as seniors or low-income individuals. Buses in Kansas City, Worcester, Massachusetts, Richmond, Virginia, and Raleigh, North Carolina, are free to ride, and Boston’s new mayor wants to move in that direction. 

However, transit ridership remains depressed as waves of COVID variants continue to upset once-normal work and personal travel patterns. That puts a strain on revenues for transit providers, potentially limiting an agency's ability to continue low or zero-fare programs. 

Expect public transportation agencies to begin tapping the $89.9 billion in Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funds for public transit this year to buy more zero-emission buses, add dedicated bus lanes and upgrade bus shelters and train stations. Transit agencies in New York City, Los Angeles and Boston are also reorganizing their bus networks to provide more and better service to the communities that rely most on transit. 

Agencies will continue working to engage local communities during the planning process for major construction projects, changes in service and new initiatives. New York and Atlanta are among those holding virtual public meetings and conducting other outreach to get input on their plans.

At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded $1 billion in discretionary grants to 90 projects in 47 states through the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) program. Among other criteria, the RAISE program emphasizes projects that create good-paying jobs, address climate change and advance racial equity. 

Smart city leaders will continue to collaborate across regions and organizations

The trend of regional smart city consortiums and their private partners joining forces will likely continue in the year ahead as smart city leaders seek to learn from each other and make more data-informed decisions while also leveraging new federal dollars.

Last fall, seven regional consortiums formed the National Smart Coalitions Partnership, one of the largest smart cities networks in the U.S., which now represents over 100 local governments. 

That national partnership formed on the heels of the creation of a new lobbying group, The Coalition for Urban Innovation, which includes key industry groups and companies like the Smart Cities Council, Replica, and Via Transportation. As coalition advisory board member, urbanist and University of Toronto professor Richard Florida explained in an earlier email interview, federal investments in urban policy and innovation are fragmented across a host of cabinet agencies, thus better coordination could make those investments more efficient and impactful.

These types of partnerships also are coming at a time when many local leaders may feel jaded about the lack of impact that new smart city tech, or "bright shiny objects," has had compared with what it originally promised to deliver, according to Tyler Svitak, executive director of the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance. New federal investments also could help restore interest in the smart city conversation, Svitak said in an earlier interview.

Worker shortages will persist in transit as well

Transit agencies around the country are experiencing labor shortages that have canceled bus runs and subway train trips. Worker absences due to COVID-19 illnesses are partly responsible. Many agencies, including New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), froze hiring in 2020 to cut costs. But the pandemic only magnified a structural labor shortage for transportation workers that existed well before the coronavirus pandemic.

To attract workers, the MTA is offering incentives to retirees and Los Angeles and Denver are among those offering signing bonuses. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro), on its careers page, also promises an "an unmatched range of benefits," retirement and pension plans, and perks "to support the well-being, financial stability and families of our employees." 

Laurel Paget-Seekins, a leadership in government fellow with the Open Society Foundations who previously worked for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, said this deferred compensation approach to incentives is out of step with the expectations of younger workers: "I don't think new people coming into the workforce are thinking about working at a single employer for their entire career."  

Transit agencies aren't all to blame for the hiring difficulties. Where collective bargaining agreements are in place, the agency can't act unilaterally to make changes in hiring procedures. "Unfortunately, transit operations have been placed in this box where they couldn't innovate if they wanted to because the union controls the workforce," said Patrick Parents Jr., who drove a bus for the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) for 10 years and is now a consultant in transit operator recruitment.

Larger issues such as hours and working conditions are also a factor. Paget-Seekins urged transit agencies to address work-life balance and provide more support to workers who are on the front lines.

While transit agencies are making hires – the MTA has trained more than 1,000 new bus drivers, train operators and conductors in the past year– the underlying deterrents to these jobs remain, and this workforce is now the oldest in the transportation sector, according to the Shared-Use Mobility Center. For new hires, the unknown factor is how long they'll stay in the job. As Paget-Seekins pointed out, "​​There's recruiting, and then there's retaining."

Parents' outlook is not optimistic. "I foresee the shortage happening for at least the next three to four years," he said.  

Micromobility will work to become integral to urban transportation systems

The pandemic could have been a death knell for the micromobility industry. Ridership initially plummeted as downtowns shut down and some providers pulled vehicles off the streets. 

Two years later, the fleets haven’t just survived – they’re now cementing themselves as a permanent part of the mobility landscape. As people gravitated towards transportation modes that allowed social distancing, ridership ticked up in 2021. The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that the number of shared scooter and bike services increased from 237 in 2020 to 280 last year. 

Still, five years after dockless e-scooter fleets launched in cities across the country, many operators are still working on borrowed time. Many cities are using temporary permits and pilot programs to test policies to improve safety, emphasize sustainability and reduce sidewalk clutter. With no national rules or guidance, many fleets are subject to the pressures of local governments. 

Micromobility companies see themselves as a crucial tool for replacing short car trips and making cities more livable. Advocates say the ideal vision would be for riders to be able to ride a bike or scooter from their door to run a short errand or hop on public transit, then find a vehicle on the other end, possibly all handled through an all-in-one trip-planning app. 

Getting there will require fleet operators to prove they’re serious, said Ryan Citron, a senior research analyst leading Guidehouse Insights' micromobility and electric vehicles solutions. “Continuing to reduce dangerous riding behaviour and parking in off-limits areas will be critical to winning the support of city governments and the public at large,” he said.

However, governments also have a role to play through expanding bike lanes, adding parking hubs and crafting micromobility-friendly regulations. Plus, Citron said in an email, “government funding to directly subsidize shared micromobility (similar to how government subsidizes public transit) could vastly accelerate the expansion of micromobility’s role in the transportation ecosystem.”

The urgent need for climate adaptation is spurring nature-based solutions

The costly effects of extreme weather and other conditions driven by climate change are becoming an increasingly hard-to-ignore reality for cities. Last year, the U.S. experienced 20 weather or climate disaster events with losses that exceeded $1 billion. 

Some cities are now also experiencing weather events that are entirely different from what they're used to. Notable examples from last year included a winter whiteout in Texas, record-breaking heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, and a destructive offseason wildfire and high winds in Colorado. Meanwhile, Northeastern cities – which have faced such destructive storms in the past decade as Sandy and Ida – are facing new warnings that hurricanes will become more common in the region.

In a bid to preempt some future climate-related costs, the infrastructure bill designated $47 billion for climate resilience, with a heavy focus on electrification. Meanwhile, nature-based solutions are gaining interest from cities due to their multiple potential benefits. Examples include street trees, which sequester carbon and offer shade, or rain gardens or green roofs, which recycle water and help mitigate runoff problems. The World Economic Forum recently highlighted how cities have room to shift more of their infrastructure spending to these types of solutions, which the organization says are often more cost-effective.

Cities will aim to address housing affordability issues the pandemic has exacerbated

Over the past decade, the cost of housing in many urban regions of the U.S. has outpaced household incomes, making the cost of buying a home out of reach for many. The cost of renting an apartment has also increased during the pandemic, resulting in estimates that 14% of all renters had fallen behind on their payments last July. Economic conditions and the pandemic have resulted in more evictions and exacerbated homelessness as well.

The rising unaffordability is the result of a failure to plan for and produce enough housing to accommodate population growth in cities, said Christopher Ptomey, executive director of the Urban Land Institute’s Terwilliger Center for Housing. 

City populations have also shifted during the pandemic, in part due to the proliferation of remote work. As a result, it’s not just the large gateway cities that are experiencing pressure in the housing market, but the secondary cities as well, Ptomey said. 

The question cities must address is whether the move to virtual work is permanent, allowing these housing trends to persist, or if in-person employment will eventually make a comeback, said Corianne Payton Scally, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute researching housing and community development policies. 

Local governments and nonprofits need to pay attention to local housing and employment trends and work on understanding the shifts that are happening in their community, Scally said. They also need to have a plan in place and tools available to spur housing production, preserve and rehabilitate older buildings, and provide rental assistance for families who may need it, she said. 

Ptomey advocates loosening zoning, setback, and other regulations and reducing other barriers in local government that hinder the construction of more housing in all neighborhoods as other approaches to alleviating the housing crisis. 

Electrification in transportation and buildings will become even more mainstream

More cars, trucks and buses are plugging in as the shift toward battery-powered vehicles kicks into high gear – a trend that will be seen most in large metropolitan areas, analysts predict. 

Globally, automakers plan to invest more than $500 billion by 2030 in developing new electric vehicles and batteries, resulting in hundreds of new electric passenger car and light truck models coming in the next four years. Industry analysts see growing consumer interest in EVs as well. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act committed $7.5 billion to build out a national network of public chargers. 

Commercial delivery vehicles are fast becoming the next hot market for battery-electric vehicles, with Amazon, Walmart and FedEx all placing orders for thousands of delivery vans.

Meanwhile, transit agencies across the country are beginning to deploy battery-electric buses in greater numbers, and battery-powered trains are getting introduced as well. 

Transportation isn’t the only front where cities are increasingly embracing electrification.

The momentum surrounding building electrification in 2021 is also carrying forward in the new year. Last year, a handful of cities and states updated building codes, adopted performance standards, or otherwise banned new natural gas hookups and heavily incentivized electric alternatives. The movement, which largely began on the West Coast and in California, has since carried over to New York City and potentially New York state.

These initiatives will require further market development and preparation for scale-up, and the sector is seeing new high-profile investments accordingly. For example, Brooklyn-based climate tech company BlocPower, which is working with Ithaca, New York, on its citywide electrification effort, recently received funding from the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund and the Bezos Earth Fund. More broadly, if the Build Back Better Act were to become reality, it would unlock billions more to decarbonize the building sector through electrification and energy efficiency incentives.

There’s still low-hanging fruit for tackling new buildings’ emissions in many parts of the U.S., as cities largely have yet to retrofit and decarbonize existing buildings, which are the vast majority of a city’s building stock. One initiative that could help: the Biden administration announced this month it’s teaming with more than 30 local governments (plus the states of Colorado and Washington) to support the development of building performance standards, which could be designed to improve existing buildings.

Denver is in its first year of using a data hub to support agencies that have traditionally operated using a siloed approach to data management.

The new hub, implemented by the city, its county and the Seattle-based company Slalom LLC, is a central and searchable repository that allows officials within the city and its county to mix datasets to create advanced analytics and provide faster access to the most current and accurate data available, said Paul Kresser, the city's first chief data officer in an email. The city collects data on everything from bike racks to traffic signals to water quality.

The city uses the hub to assist its smart cities initiatives and make more data-informed decisions surrounding equity, mobility, affordability and neighborhood engagement, he said. The hub, he believes, will spur cross-departmental collaboration that could help address complex social and economic issues such as better serving people experiencing homelessness. 

"The previous technology and processes were failing to keep pace with the analytic demands from city agencies and end-users," Kresser said. "Analyzing and applying predictive analytics to our data allows us to innovate and provide even better services."

Denver is one of a growing number of cities using data to understand their problems, develop solutions and evaluate whether those solutions are working and equitable, said Lauren Su, director of certification at What Works Cities, in an email. The What Works Cities initiative was launched by Bloomberg Philanthropies and led by Results for America to enhance cities' use of data and evidence. 

Since 2015, the percentage of cities that used data to monitor and analyze progress on key goals more than doubled from 30% to 75%, according to findings in a June 2021 report by What Works Cities and the Monitor Institute by Deloitte. As more cities pursue digital transformation, hastened in some cases by the pandemic, a number of challenges stand in their way but they also stand to reap benefits like improvements to budgeting processes, increased transparency for residents, and more equitable city services.

"Today, data isn’t just a valuable tool for city leaders –⁠ it’s a necessity," said Su. 

The percentage of cities with platforms to share data with residents more than tripled from 18% to 67% over the past six years, the report stated. Over half of the officials from the 44 cities surveyed used data to make budgetary decisions, award contracts, and deliver city services more efficiently, effectively, and/or equitably. 

By analyzing data, a city could determine how many people were served by a particular program, who did not have access to those services, whether it improved outcomes for residents, and if it was accessible and used in targeted communities, said Su.

Su pointed to a range of examples across the U.S. Little Rock, Arkansas, uses data to help identify and fix broken streetlights. Buffalo, New York, uses it to reduce lead exposure among low-income families. Long Beach, California, used it to support small businesses through the Covid-19 pandemic. And Madison, Wisconsin, is using it to revamp its budget to reflect equity goals.

The embrace of data-informed decision-making

The movement toward data-informed decision-making began around 2013, when cities slowly began hiring again after years of operating with drastically reduced workforces as a result of the 2007 financial crisis, said Su. Newly hired staff took on heavy workloads, she said, but relied on new innovation, data governance, transparency, performance management and program evaluation practices to deliver better and more equitable services. 

The pandemic also pushed cities to automate and improve citizen services, said Apurva “Apu” Kumar, CEO of CITYDATA.ai, in an email. The San Francisco-based company provides mobility data for cities. 

Government technology has always lagged the industry, Kumar said. While government agencies generate a lot of data, not all agencies are adept at collecting, refining and analyzing both their own and third-party or open data, Kumar said. 

During the pandemic, cities leaned on tools like AI chatbots, multilingual mobile apps, virtual meetings, online town halls and engagement through social media. "The resulting digital transformation started to generate even more data, enabling government agencies to put such data to use to improve citizen services," he said.

Cities face numerous challenges when using the data such as disaggregating it by race, ethnic origin, age and neighborhood. Such data could allow officials to see whether a program is working and if services are being delivered to underserved neighborhoods and residents — whereas a citywide metric may hide inequities or fail to tell the whole story.

A city, for instance, may receive a higher number of complaints around sidewalk repair, from overwhelmingly White, wealthier neighborhoods, Su said. But that’s not necessarily where most of the service challenges are. 

Evidence-informed approaches are possible for all city governments, said Su. However, larger cities have a leg-up since they tend to have better-funded IT departments and data science teams, said Kumar. Every mayor and city manager in the U.S. knows the value of data-driven decision-making, he said. But mid-sized or small cities may not have the resources to prioritize data. 

"We have noticed a size bias or budget bias when it comes to embracing data," said Kumar. "This makes it imperative to find ways to empower mid-to-small cities on tight budgets to utilize data in their processes and daily operations."

Chattanooga, Tennessee, is among the mid-sized cities that have embraced the use of data. It collects data when police respond to 911 calls; when a resident submits a request for a pothole repair; or when someone is cited for a code violation, said Andrew Sevigny, director of the city’s performance management and open data office, in an email.

The city’s open data program has grown since its 2014 launch. It allows residents and officials to analyze the city’s budget and spending. It also puts the historic and near real-time data in an easy-to-use format so departments can gain insight and ultimately be better stewards of taxpayer money, he said.

“Data can help to highlight inequities that no one may be thinking of. Data can help in storytelling about lived experiences Chattanoogans have in the city,” said Sevigny.

A silent revolution is underway on city streets as transit agencies large and small replace noisy, polluting diesel buses with clean, quiet electric vehicles. But agencies and bus manufacturers alike warn that the transition is not as simple as signing a procurement order for new battery-powered buses.

The number of battery-electric transit buses (BEBs) currently on order or operating in the U.S. grew 112% from 2018 to 2021 according to data compiled yearly by Calstart. California leads the nation with almost 1,400 on the road or on order, followed by Washington, New York and Florida. A much smaller number of fuel-cell electric buses are out there, and their numbers are growing as well.

"It is a robust market with successful deployments happening all across the country," Dan Raudebaugh, executive director of the Center for Transportation and the Environment (CTE), said in an email. CTE is a nonprofit that helps develop and implement advanced transportation technologies. Raudebaugh said they have helped more than 70 transit agencies put electric buses on the street.

He named Austin, Texas; Seattle, Los Angeles and Oakland, California, as leaders in adopting battery-powered buses but added that smaller cities like Portland, Maine; Duluth, Minnesota; and Gainesville, Florida, are also adding these vehicles.

"Deploying these buses is challenging, but the buses work," Raudebaugh said. Bus for bus, electric vehicles cost more, mainly due to the high cost of batteries, and that affects procurement budgets. Transit agencies rely on federal funds for 80%-85% of the purchase price of buses, he said. 

But the $1 trillion infrastructure legislation that passed last year increased funding for the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) Low or No Emission Vehicle Grant Program and for the Buses and Bus Facilities Program, under which transit agencies can procure zero-emission buses.

The transition from fossil-fueled buses to electric buses may require operational changes due to charging cycles and range limits. Transit agencies need to carefully evaluate their current service and the feasibility of applying zero-emission technology, Raudebaugh said.

He said that planning is essential for transit agencies; many have already tested the waters with a small number of buses. Now, with that experience, they're getting ready to commit to transitioning their entire fleets to battery electrics. "We have long been convinced that public transit will be the first transportation sector to transition to zero emission," Raudebaugh said.

How a large transit agency is preparing for an all-electric bus fleet

With 1,150 buses, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates some 180 routes with current average weekday ridership of 276,000. In 2019, the MBTA purchased five 60-foot battery-electric buses for the Silver Line, which serves Logan Airport, Boston South Station, Chinatown and other communities. Working from that experience, the agency expects to operate a fully electric fleet by 2040. 

Bill Wolfgang, the MBTA’s director of vehicle engineering, and Scott Hamwey, director of its bus modernization program, are leading that transition. The first lesson they learned was how Boston's frigid winters play havoc with battery range, they told Smart Cities Dive in an interview. Wolfgang explained that with frequent stops and repeated door openings, keeping the bus interiors warm added to battery drain. 

There were reliability issues with these first buses, Wolfgang said. He explained that connection issues between the charger and the vehicles reduced initial recharge reliability to less than 50%. That meant that some buses weren't fully charged for the next day's runs.

But technology has advanced, and charger reliability is now close to 90%, according to Wolfgang. "That allows us to transition our fleet into the modern day." One remaining barrier for the MBTA is that its bus depots and maintenance facilities are unable to accommodate electric buses.

For now, the MBTA is not planning on charging along the route, so all buses need to be fully recharged at their depots each night to complete the next day's schedules. That could require nightly monitoring of 100 to 200 buses per depot.

Pending funding, the MBTA plans to renovate and modernize five of its nine bus facilities by the end of the decade, while adding bus capacity to accommodate future ridership growth, said Hamwey. It will install charging systems and overhead pantographs and bring a lot more power to the facilities so they can charge the electric fleets, he added.  

For those renovations, time is of the essence. The MBTA looks to replace its buses on a 12-year cycle, which requires buying 80 to 100 new vehicles each year, Wolfgang explained. If the maintenance facilities aren't ready to handle battery-electric vehicles, the agency will have to purchase diesel-electric hybrid buses instead.  

According to Wolfgang, it will cost $4.5 billion to upgrade all of MBTA’s bus facilities and $100 million to $130 million annually for new buses, but maintenance costs could be lower over the life of the vehicles than they are for diesel or compressed natural gas (CNG) buses, he said. 

Electric buses deliver other benefits as well. "It gives our workforce a cleaner environment," Wolfgang said, adding that these buses will be quieter and nonpolluting for the communities they serve. 

"This is an opportunity for us as a government agency to lead in this area," Wolfgang declared, seated in front of a large picture of a new hybrid-electric bus soon to come to Boston. "It's on the production line with New Flyer," he explained about the vehicle pictured behind him. "We're really excited about this one."

Manufacturing the future of zero-emission bus transit 

New Flyer, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, got its start in 1930 and today is North America's largest transit bus manufacturer. It launched its first hybrid-electric bus in 1999 and its first battery-electric bus in 2012.  

Jennifer McNeill, vice president of public sector sales and marketing for the company, said she saw a change in the transit bus market in late 2019, when agencies weren't willing to make traditional five-year purchasing commitments. They couldn't decide what to buy, she said, with choices ranging from diesel and CNG to battery and fuel-cell electrics. Then, with the onset of the pandemic, many transit agencies put purchasing on hold. 

As sales ramped back up, McNeill said, "We're seeing a much larger percentage being zero-emission vehicles," with New Flyer receiving larger orders and agencies committing to multiyear agreements. "Now, we're getting into true transition."

Helping that shift along are industrywide charging standards allowing the chargers to work with vehicles from multiple bus manufacturers, and greater battery density delivering longer range. "We believe that the transition to zero emission is happening. It will end up with the majority, if not all, of our production being zero emission," McNeill said.

Austin commits to electrifying its transit fleet by 2035

Capital Metro Transportation Authority (CapMetro), which serves Austin, Texas, ordered 30 battery-electric buses from New Flyer and 26 from Proterra, a manufacturer of both buses and EV batteries, with options to purchase over 250 more. 

The agency, with a 426-bus fleet, has 12 electric buses that have been in service for two years. Deputy CEO Dottie Watkins said she expects to fully electrify CapMetro's transit fleet around 2035, replacing its 55 commuter buses somewhat later.

"All of a sudden, going and buying a bus is fun and cool and exciting," Watkins exclaimed. But she also said there is a learning curve around charging and range management. 

CapMetro will use both depot charging and on-route charging, placing chargers at transit centers, park-and-ride locations and major transfer points. That, Watkins said, will allow them to match the range of diesel buses. She also said the agency is talking with the local municipally-owned utility, Austin Energy, so the power grid will be ready where and when the growing number of battery buses will be deployed. 

Watkins stressed the importance of worker training: "We have seen firsthand how important training is across the board for maintenance employees, as well as operations employees, to make your electric bus deployment successful."

She said they talked to cities including Los Angeles and Seattle that were further ahead in bus electrification to learn about these and other issues. She urged other transit agencies to do the same: "Talk to other transit systems that have operated electric buses. Don't be afraid to ask for help."

Small transit agency in Oregon has big goals

The Lane Transit District (LTD) serves Lane County, Oregon, including the cities of Eugene and Springfield. Its 100-bus fleet currently includes diesel-electric hybrid buses and 11 battery-electric buses that were delivered last year, with an additional 19 BEBs arriving this year, according to Matt Imlach, the agency's director of fleet management. By the end of 2022, 30% of its fleet will be clean battery-electric buses, Imlach said. 

The agency spent $10.6 million for its first 11 electric vehicles and the depot chargers, a purchase partially funded by the FTA’s Low or No Emission Vehicle Grant Program. 

Imlach said the district prepared by installing plug-in depot chargers and training technicians about the vehicles' electric systems. Drivers, who were already familiar with hybrid-electric buses, took to the battery-electrics easily after a training course. "Some drivers love it as a challenge to see how much state-of-charge that they can bring the bus back with," he said. 

The agency operates frequent-stop service and some bus rapid transit (BRT) lines, which travel farther with limited stops. That's an issue for the current range of electric buses, and Imlach said they are evaluating hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles for those routes.    

Dealing with the cold in Canada and Northern U.S. cities

Cold climate cities are not shying away from battery-electric buses. Winnipeg Transit began operating its first BEBs in 2014 and now plans a side-by-side test of eight long-range battery-electric buses and eight fuel-cell electric buses for 12-18 months, supplied by New Flyer. The Toronto Transit Commission and the University of Michigan have also ordered battery-powered buses.  

"The technology is ever-evolving," said Christos Kritsidimas, spokesperson for Nova Bus, a Canadian-based subsidiary of Volvo Group. "Every iteration gives a little bit more [battery] density, and with more density comes more range and longer life."

Nova Bus recently received an order from four transit authorities in the province of Quebec for 24 electric buses. Catherine Fournier, mayor of Longueuil, a city across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal, said in a statement that she expects half of its bus fleet to be electric by 2030.

Accelerating the transition to zero-emission

Battery-electric buses are not the only zero-emission buses, but they have dominated the market so far. As of September 2021, Calstart counted 3,364 battery-electric buses and 169 fuel-cell electric buses in use or on order in the U.S. 

Fuel-cell vehicles use compressed hydrogen as an energy source. By combining hydrogen with oxygen through an electrochemical reaction, a fuel cell produces heat, water and electricity. The electric output continuously charges onboard batteries, allowing these vehicles to match the range of diesel and CNG buses.

The majority of fuel-cell electric buses are found in California, which has invested in and promoted hydrogen as a zero-emission fuel source. Foothill Transit and SunLine Transit Agency, both in Southern California, have committed to hydrogen power. In Illinois, the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District not only deployed 60-foot hydrogen fuel-cell electric buses, but the agency also constructed its own hydrogen fuel production station, powered by a solar array.

"Hydrogen fuel-cell [technology] is a growing appetite in our industry," said Ben Grunat, vice president of product planning and strategy for GILLIG, a California-based bus manufacturing company. And whether transit agencies choose fuel-cell electric or battery-electric vehicles, bus manufacturers say they are ready to help with the transition.

As Proterra Spokesperson Shane Levy put it, "Today, the question is no longer if communities will transition to 100% zero-emission transportation, but how fast we can get there." 

The COVID-19 pandemic gave urban resilience work new meaning and urgency, while illuminating ways to widen its impact, according to professionals and experts who help cities pursue and complete resilience planning.

Almost a decade has passed since the now-defunct 100 Resilient Cities initiative began its efforts to seed chief resilience officers into city governments and push urban resilience planning to the fore. City officials tasked with resilience work were largely focused on preparing for and adapting to extreme weather and disasters worsened by the effects of the climate crisis.

Urban resilience can broadly mean "the capacity of a city’s systems, businesses, institutions, communities, and individuals to survive, adapt, and grow, no matter what chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience," according to Resilient Cities Network, a group that's evolved from 100 Resilient Cities. The pandemic surfaced a range of unignorable considerations for what resilience can entail — creating new opportunities, but also further exposing potential inequities as far as which communities are able to implement resilience planning going forward.

For instance, cities came face to face with the challenges of how not having enough capable, healthy people available to work can jeopardize the reliability of critical city services — be it in transit or trash collection — according to Heather Rosenberg, an associate principal who leads the resilience team in advisory firm Arup’s Los Angeles office. That experience highlighted chronic underinvestment in communities where many of those essential workers live.

"The whole awareness around who is an essential worker and what are the essential functions of our society are so much more clear and pronounced," she said.

This year has already produced numerous initiatives exemplifying the spectrum of issues cities think about under resilience. New Haven, Connecticut, for example, created a human services-focused Department of Community Resilience, focused on coordinated and data-driven approaches to issues including homelessness, substance abuse, violence prevention, re-entry initiatives after prison, and mental health services. Tempe, Arizona, officials are using coronavirus relief funds to develop a so-called resilience hub that could provide refuge for community members in the event of power loss during an extreme heatwave.

Over the last two years, certain federal action has provided new funding streams for a variety of initiatives under this broader definition of resilience. But federal officials have also recognized the challenges around distributing that support equitably.

Federal attention

Some federal support has already come through a pair of coronavirus relief packages and will continue to arrive via the $1.2 trillion infrastructure legislation that passed in November. If passed, the Build Back Better bill before the U.S. Senate could provide additional financial support. Additionally, this month a bipartisan group of senators introduced the National Climate Adaptation and Resilience Strategy Act which in part seeks to create a chief resilience officer position in the White House and aims to ensure a unified, equitable response to climate hazards across the U.S. government.

But this federal engagement is still relatively new. “For a long time, most cities in America have relied on public-private partnership, and generally the private sector, to drive transformation. And I think that's changing really quickly right now,” said Thad Pawlowski, managing director of the Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes at Columbia University.

Emergency management funding has also placed a greater emphasis on resilience initiatives. The Biden administration doubled the federal allocation to the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program to $1 billion for the 2021 fiscal year. That program, housed under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), aims to shift some reactive post-disaster spending to assist state and local governments with more proactive community efforts in anticipation of hurricanes, wildfires and other costly disasters.

One key drawback was the program initially provided disproportionately more funding to well-resourced communities in coastal states, and largely left out smaller, rural communities, analysis of BRIC's first round of awardees found. Even though the overall money available is increasing this year and FEMA changed some aspects of the program's structure to address certain equity concerns, the competitive grant model can still be regressive in nature. That's according to Kristin Smith, a researcher at Headwaters Economics, a Bozeman, Montana-based nonprofit research group, who in part provides technical assistance to smaller communities seeking these opportunities.

The human resources needed to complete the application process, as well as the requirement for some level of cost-sharing commitment from cities to be eligible for grant money, will be prohibitive for some communities and exacerbate the uneven spread of resilience planning in the U.S., she said. "The places that have been leading in resilience planning I think will continue to lead," Smith said. “At the end of the day, being able to plan proactively and do resilience planning is a privilege. Most communities do not have the resources."

Adapting how to adapt

Experts emphasized that life during the pandemic put into striking relief the connected nature of cities' environmental challenges and social injustices, and city efforts ought to reflect that. The most daunting underlying problems for cities, like climate change and racism, must be addressed together, said Pawlowski. "It's not just putting an equity lens on the way that we address climate change," he said.

Cities have a lot of room to revisit their climate action plans with this in mind, said Rosenberg. Austin, Texas, for example, set a goal in 2014 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This past September, the city issued a climate equity plan which not only pushed up the date of that goal by a decade but also aimed to put racial equity at the forefront. The city said it sought to hear from residents about how they experienced the harms from climate change differently.

Multiple advisers in the resilience space underscored the importance of cities sharing information and learning from one another in a quickly evolving field. Additionally, Smith suggested that regional-level planning and partnerships can help extend planning opportunities and participation to communities that may otherwise lack the resources on their own. "Resilience doesn’t stop at city borders," she said.

Resilience leaders in local governments are also working to better collect and integrate data when deciding on the most multifunctional, cost-effective strategies, according to Cassandra Bhat, director of climate resilience at the ICF Climate Center. Cities are also doing a better job of drawing on census-level data, allowing officials to do things like better track who is benefiting from which services, she said. Understanding that things will continue to evolve, cities are increasingly incorporating adaptive management into planning. Further, they're setting processes that allow them to identify near-term adaptation strategies, measure what's working, and then lay a pathway to make different data-informed decisions in the future, she explained.

And as more novel strategies emerge, there remains plenty of proven, cost-effective, low-hanging fruit that cities could pursue — such as planting trees to combat urban heat, according to Bhat. "It's really important to start somewhere and not let uncertainty or the perfect be the enemy of the good."