Where are Private “Smart City” Transportation Technologies Concentrated in California?

In recent years, “smart city” information and communication technologies have proliferated. For local government agencies, procuring and introducing these technologies offers the possibility to manage infrastructure assets more effectively, plan for preventive maintenance, and disseminate schedules and information about transit and other services. Many of these technologies are deployed by private firms in the context of local regulations and government-sponsored incentives. In the transportation sector, examples of “smart city” technology services provided by private firms include: electric vehicle (EV) chargers, micro-mobility (e.g., scooter and bike rentals), and transportation network company (TNC) services, such as Uber and Lyft. To understand variation in how private sector smart city transportation technologies are deployed across California, researchers at UC Berkeley webscraped and cross verified data on EV chargers, Uber services, and micro-mobility. EV charger data was obtained from the Department of Energy, and Uber and micromobility access data came from vendor websites.