The MOU comes after more than two years of work on the part of the city and university to form an agreement to investigate smart cities technologies. The partnership offers the city a mechanism for elevating conversations around smart transportation projects it’s already involved with “to the national level,” said Bhide.

“The way we would do that is USF and Tampa would then take the city and university partnership and become part of MetroLab Network,” said Bhide, referring to the network of more than 35 city-university partners that use data and analytics to solve real-world urban problems. USF and Tampa will apply to join this collaborative.

“That does plug us into a national dialogue now, where we can learn from what other communities in the country are doing, and also share some of our unique perspectives,”
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