Carnegie Mellon University’s Traffic21 Institute awarded $400,000 to projects throughout the 10-county region that tackle significant mobility issues.

The Smart Mobility Challenge aims to prove that technology and innovation can improve connectivity throughout southwestern Pennsylvania. Getting people to work, to medical care or to friends is essential for thriving communities, but Traffic21’s executive director Stan Caldwell draws a distinction between transportation and mobility; lots of transit infrastructure was built to move people, but left some communities behind.

“The future of mobility is sometimes connecting the dots and providing access to communities that may not be physically distant but are cut off from our traditional transportation system,” said Caldwell. “Whether they’re cut off because of a highway running through a neighborhood, or they don’t have transit access, or they don’t have sidewalks.”