IBI Group’s expertise in designing smart, connected cities and communities has been a core competency of the firm for the last 40 years.
Providing a range of services related to the integrated and sustainable movement of people, goods and information, several prominent intelligence and infrastructure projects received awards in Q4. These awards highlight the outstanding contributions of IBI Group’s global engineers, architects and planners.
The Bhubaneswar Smart City Strategic Plan, developed by IBI Group, was an Innovative Global South Award Finalist at the 2016 World Smart City Awards (Smart City Expo World Congress). The firm’s proposal for Bhubaneswar, India, will equip and enable the city to adopt a more sustainable model of development. Part of the plan includes transit-oriented development, creating access and driving socio-economic development, as well as fiscal sustainability. In July, the project also received an Award of Merit from the Canadian Institute of Planners in their International Development category, for redefining and demystifying the concept of the smart cities movement in developing countries.
The SR-520 Evergreen Floating Bridge in Seattle, Washington, recently won Excellence in Design (Engineering) from the Design-Build Institute of America. Along with the full design-build team, IBI Group is recognized for designing its intelligent transportation system (including detection, cameras, active traffic management signs and ramp meters), a fiber communication network, tolling infrastructure and tolling implementation plan as well as providing urban design services and the architectural design of the two transit stations along the 520 corridor east of the new bridge. The SR 520 Floating Bridge and Landings Project is the world's longest floating bridge, creating a safer, more reliable link between Seattle and the growing high-tech cities east of Lake Washington. With HOV lanes, full shoulders for disabled vehicles, a cross-lake bicycle and pedestrian path, and the largest, heaviest and strongest bridge pontoons ever built, the new, 1.5-mile floating highway dramatically improves the movement of people and freight in the region.
In Vancouver, IBI Group received the 2016 Mavis Johnson Award from the Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineers for the Variable Speed Limit System, designed for the Ministry of Transportation Infrastructure in British Columbia. Implemented in June 2016, the software alerts drivers of their speed on major Vancouver area highways, “enhancing the monitoring and control capabilities of the Regional Transportation Management Centre, and leveraging the Ministry’s investment in the Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS),” said IBI Director, Homayoun Vahidi.
A selection of global award wins from the intelligence and infrastructure sectors, IBI Group received additional awards and accolades in 2016 for its global projects and integrated services in architecture, interior design, planning, engineering and technology.
