Smart Cities World: City of Fort Worth joins North Texas Innovation Alliance
City is demonstrating thought leadership on broadband as a mode of mobility, leveraging the alliance’s guidance to build a world-class smart city ecosystem.
The city of Fort Worth is the newest member of the North Texas Innovation Alliance (NTXIA), a consortium of 40 municipalities, agencies, corporations, and academic institutions, committed to building the “most connected, smart, and resilient region” in the US.
According to NTXIA, Fort Worth’s joining signifies a major step towards the city’s continued commitment to enhancing quality of life, safety, public health and welfare of residents in the region through a data-driven approach.
Smart city growth
“Bringing Fort Worth into the alliance further strengthens our regional efforts in broadening smart city growth and economic development across North Texas,” said Jennifer Sanders, co-founder and executive director, NTXIA.
“We are proud to partner with city leadership who have demonstrated forward-thinking approaches to improving broadband infrastructure, mobility, entrepreneurial development and access to economic opportunities and human services, as well as offering scalable solutions for the North Texas region, as a whole.”
Sanders added: “We look forward to a collaboration that will help maximise the public benefits gained through the development of an interconnected, safe and efficient smart city system.”
As reportedly the fastest-growing large city in the country, Fort Worth said it has adopted a “systematic and purposeful” approach to smart city integration, with broadband integration as a central focus.
It has implemented a fibre ring to connect city facilities and provide high-speed internet access to underserved neighbourhoods, created smart intersections with advanced detection capabilities to improve safety, deployed distributed acoustic sensing for data collection and improved dynamic signage.
“With NTXIA providing guidance, we have additional support to ensure our city is taking the best approach in implementing our smart infrastructure and smart city upgrades through the region”
The city also supports the Alliance Texas Mobility Innovation Zone (the Miz) as a designated tech space that allows for testing, scaling and commercialisation of new technologies in surface and air mobility. In partnering with NTXIA, Fort Worth will receive practical guidance on integrating these projects into a world-class smart city ecosystem.
“In partnering with NTXIA, Fort Worth is taking a leadership role in fostering collaboration and adoption of new technologies throughout the broader North Texas region,” said Carlo Capua, chief of strategy and innovation.“We’re exploring the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to expedite the construction permitting process, as well as exploring pilot programmes around on-demand rideshare and digital twinning as a tool for predictive modelling to help ensure we are making the best decisions possible for the public.”
Capua continued: “We are also taking a proactive and regional approach to smart infrastructure upgrades that don’t stop at the city limits. With NTXIA providing guidance, we have additional support to ensure our city is taking the best approach in implementing our smart infrastructure and smart city upgrades through the region.”
A key part of the city’s smart infrastructure strategy is the concept of broadband as a mode of transportation and mobility. One of the city’s policies is leveraging transportation funds as a means of expanding broadband access in a more equitable way.
“The term ‘smart city’ isn’t just one thing. It describes how we approach the decision-making process, using different technology to analyse challenges and solutions in a rational, deliberate way that is based on data”
Joining NTXIA will allow it to accelerate smart city initiatives, specifically around large-scale events and moving people to and from the city centre as quickly and efficiently as possible, staying up-to-date on AI policies and creating legacy projects that will extend throughout the North Texas region.
“The term ‘smart city’ isn’t just one thing. It describes how we approach the decision-making process, using different technology to analyse challenges and solutions in a rational, deliberate way that is based on data,” said Kelly Porter, assistant director for transportation and public works for the City of Fort Worth.
“Part of our strategy is viewing broadband and high-speed fibre as the foundation that supports everything else, and partnering with NXTIA helps us think creatively about how to build and fund that infrastructure. The knowledge, resources and connections available to NTXIA members will directly support the city’s goal of serving as a proving ground for using transportation funding streams to provide equitable access to the community and recognising broadband as a public utility and mode of mobility.”
Smart and resilient region
The North Texas Innovation Alliance (NTXIA) is a 501(c)3 consortium of key cross-sector stakeholders working to develop and implement a smart region strategy for North Texas. Bringing together government entities on all levels, transit agencies, utilities/infrastructure, public safety, educational institutions and some of the world’s top technology developers in the private sector it seeks to build the “most connected, smart and resilient region” in the country.