City leaders in Peachtree Corners have spent the last few years investing heavily into technology to build out a smart city outfitted with dozens of sensors and digital tools. Brandon Branham, assistant city manager and chief technology officer of Peachtree Corners, told reporters that the city has long “stressed the importance of smart connected infrastructure to support all parts of an ecosystem,” listing off a slate of technological innovations ranging from autonomous vehicles to autonomous shuttles deployed for residents, pedestrians crossing the road, and smart traffic management. “Qualcomm Technologies’ industry-leading C-V2X technologies will greatly elevate our infrastructure, making it second-to-none for both technology developers and our residents as we connect more of society and business,” Branham said. Sanjeet Pandit, senior director of business development and global head of Smart Cities at Qualcomm, said the company will be working with Jacobs and providing the hardware that is installed across Peachtree Corners. The three said the partnership will allow for the deployment of a raft of end-to-end smart solutions in what they called “one of the nation’s first smart city environments powered by real-world connected vehicle technology and infrastructure.” Through the city’s Curiosity Lab, a 5G-enabled autonomous vehicle and smart city living laboratory, Peachtree Corners has become a haven for smart connected technologies being deployed in the real world. Jacobs is helping install a bevy of roadside units, sensors and IoT technologies that Branham said will initially focus on roadside infrastructure, traffic management, and road safety. During a press conference, the three companies highlighted Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology, which will be deployed across the city. “Utility vehicles equipped with Qualcomm Technologies’ C-V2X solutions will also be utilized to demonstrate vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) direct communications,” Phil Boness, director of growth and strategies at Jacobs, explained to reporters. Pandit said C-V2X’s deployment across Peachtree Corners will showcase how the technology can help improve safety-critical communication capabilities as traffic increases across the city, which is about 20 minutes outside of Atlanta. “This C-V2X program with the Curiosity Lab and Jacobs not only highlights the ability to implement digital road infrastructure to optimize traffic and enable safer streets across global cities, but our continued commitment to offer advanced solutions for traffic safety,” Pandit noted. “This project is paving the way as an example of what communities can replicate and I expect these advanced end-to-end solutions to be an integral part of future smart city and smart connected spaces rollouts.” C-V2X will be an integral part of the city’s efforts to build a slate of safety and mobility applications while also enabling “cleaner and sustainable mobility alternatives.” The technology will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% according to the three organizations and is compatible with 5G networks. It will work alongside Advanced Driver Assistance Systems sensors like radar, cameras, and LIDAR. The low latency communications will allow vehicles to communicate with other vehicles, local roadside infrastructure, and eventually pedestrians without any use of local cellular networks. “From a safety perspective, our job is to make our residents and employees’ lives better. Metro Atlanta traffic is one of the biggest headaches we face every day. We have the second busiest corridor that cuts right to the heart of our city in our county of a million people,” Branham said. Branham added: “65,000 cars cut through here each day. How do we take infrastructure like this and make adjustments in real-time to better our lives because none of us like sitting in our cars while we’re at that red light? So we’ve invested in this now and also for the future of our city.”
