Second round of submissions for SMART Grants is now open

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is accepting applications for the second year of its Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) Grants Program. The program will fund up to $500 million in grants over five years to conduct demonstration projects focused on advanced smart community technologies and systems that improve transportation efficiency and safety.

This SMART Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) will accept applications for Stage 1 Planning and Prototyping grants. During Stage 1, the SMART program seeks to fund innovation aimed at solving real-world transportation problems and focused on building data and technology capacity and experience for State, local, and Tribal governments. The program also recognizes that many public sector transportation agencies face challenges finding the resources and personnel to leverage new technologies, so the program builds in the time and support to enable successful deployment.

The funding opportunity is open to public sector entities seeking to carry out transportation projects that demonstrate at least one of the following technology areas:

• Coordinated automation
• Connected vehicles
• Sensors
• Systems integration
• Delivery/logistics
• Innovative aviation
• Smart grid
• Traffic signals

Successful projects will create sustainable partnerships across sectors and levels of governments engaging industry, labor, academia, and nonprofits to better meet community transportation needs.

The NOFO is open now and can be found on the SMART Grants Program website. It is also posted on grants.gov. Applications must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, October 10, 2023, to the Valid Eval submission website.

More information is available here.