The Transportation Department‘s fiscal 2017 budget proposal includes about $10 billion for programs that seek to help state and local governments adopt smart transportation systems, according to Deltek research analyst Alex Rossino.
He wrote in a blog entry posted Tuesday the majority of that money would go to large-scale innovation grant programs under DOT’s 21st Century Regions Initiative.
Rossino believes the initiative presents an opportunity for companies who offer Internet of Things-based sensor technology, big data tools and cloud services.
“A >$10 billion per year USDOT investment related to the 21CRI will flow to vendors on the state and local level through local contracts funded by grants,” he noted.
“Those vendors will build the IoT infrastructure that sends data back to DOT agencies.”
He added the Federal Highway Administration issued a request for information on commercial cloud computing technology that works to analyze big data.