Primarily funded by the USDOT’s Smart City Challenge, the Smart Columbus Program is a collection of eight transportation, mobility and data studies aimed at improving access to jobs, enhancing tourism, stimulating the economy, connecting residents to safe and reliable transportation, and supporting efficient and sustainable movement of people and goods throughout Columbus. The Smart Mobility Hubs (SMH) study was established to increase access to transportation in areas with limited transit connection. Specifically, the Linden neighborhood of Columbus was chosen due to socio-economic factors such as being an area of low-income, a void of major employers, and a high infant mortality rate. Six SMHs were deployed to consolidate transportation services and amenities to allow for intermodal hubs that provide comprehensive transit options and first mile/last mile connections. Furthermore, these hubs were equipped with other deployed services in the Smart Columbus project, such as the Multimodal Trip Planning Application (MMTPA). The hubs were deployed in March 2020, and the deployment lasted one year through March 2021. Performance evaluation and assessment was performed beginning July 2020 and continued through the publishing of the study report.

The total costs of the SMHs deployment were $1,333,311, including the costs incurred to multiple vendors associated in both the deployment and operations phase:

• The total deployment cost was $1,008,140 during the SMHs demonstration (from March 2020 to July 28 2020). Of this amount, $271,178 was expended on construction and installation.
• The total operations cost was $325,171 after the launch of SMHs (from July 2020 to March 2021).

Table 1 summarizes a breakdown of the deployment and operations cost for the HMUs product, broken down by services bought.

Table 1. Breakdown of Deployment and Operations Cost. Source: City of Columbus

While the study team developed and operated the SMHs study, each vendor was responsible for planning, documentation, testing, integration, and delivery of their respective functions.

The City was able to leverage its existing advertisement-supported kiosk contract to install the six kiosks at no cost to the City.. In other cities or regions, this may not be the case, and the construction cost may be considerably higher.