Research Needs in Roadway Automation Technology

Although the concept of roadway automation has been in the public eye for nearly fifty years and it has now been thirty years since the first test track demonstrations of some of the requisite technologies, virtually no progress has yet been made toward implementation. This paper explains why it is worth re-examining roadway automation now in light of current transportation needs and technological progress. The main body of the paper outlines the technical questions that need to be answered in order to make roadway automation a reality, based on the nine functions of an automated roadway system:

1. 1.
   Intelligent traffic signalling,
2. 2.
   traffic information systems,
3. 3.
   driver warning and assistance,
4. 4.
   automatic steering control,
5. 5.
   automatic spacing control,
6. 6.
   obstacle avoidance,
7. 7.
   automatic trip routing and scheduling,
8. 8.
   control of merging of streams of traffic,
9. 9.
   transitioning to and from automatic control.