Southern Nevada adopts a unified smart community vision

All six Southern Nevada jurisdictions are now working together to connect the valley and utilize smart technology.

Imagine roads equipped for autonomous vehicles, smart streetlights that dim if they don’t detect motion and trash bins that can alert collectors when they’re about to overflow.

Boulder City, Clark County, Henderson, Las Vegas, Mesquite and North Las Vegas recently adopted a unified “Southern Nevada Smart Community Vision” in late October that will bring in technological solutions that can seamlessly interact across jurisdiction borders.

Coordinated by the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada, the vision will act as a blueprint for collaborative efforts among the Nevada Department of Transportation, local entities and other agencies.

“We may be separate entities, but the average resident doesn’t know when they cross boundaries,” said Alyssa Rodriguez, traffic engineer for the city of Henderson. “(This vision) allows us for a lot of unique opportunities because so many things are standardized.”

The jurisdictions plan to improve technology in areas like broadband connectivity and transportation, with an overall goal to increase the safeness, inclusivity, efficiency and user-friendliness of the valley.

“It’s a regional collaboration on common approaches to create a smart infrastructure for our residents and visitors,” said David Swallow, the senior director of engineering and technology for the RTC of Southern Nevada. “Before, we didn’t have a forum in which we could explain these ideas. … Now, we’re more open to dialogue.”

Swallow said technology in areas like autonomous vehicles will be a “big part” of the vision, especially since Nevada was the first state to authorize driverless cars on roadways in 2011. Nevada has seen various forms of autonomous vehicle testing, from downtown’s Navya bus to a fleet of self-driving cars from ride-share company Lyft and technology company Aptiv.

“We see an enormous amount of interest (from companies) in coming to Las Vegas to try new things,” Swallow said. “We’ve opened the door to the whole tech sector.”

Pedestrian safety is one example of an area this sort of smart community technology could improve.

Between July 2011 and July 2016, 116 pedestrians were struck by vehicles along Boulder Highway, causing 18 serious injuries and 31 deaths, according to the Nevada Department of Transportation.

To help keep pedestrians safe, the city of Henderson will be testing the usage of lidar— a detection system that uses lasers — at three locations along Boulder Highway to track interactions between pedestrians and vehicles. The city of Henderson hopes to use the information collected to advance transportation safety.

“This can recognize pedestrians and where they’re going to cross,” Rodriguez said. “It could trigger something else. A warning sign comes on, or street lights get brighter at that location (to alert oncoming vehicles). … It’s an extra level of safety.”

Laura Fucci, the chief information officer for the city of Henderson, said advanced transportation technology like this could eventually spread throughout the valley.

“We certainly recognize that our residents travel throughout the valley,” she said. “We don’t want something we implement in Henderson to end at our city border.”

Contact Bailey Schulz at bschulz@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0233. Follow @bailey_schulz on Twitter.