Intelligent Transportation Systems
At the request of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), TRB formed a committee to conduct a peer review of a then-new ITS R&D effort—the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI). The committee reviewed the program annually and issued letter reports on the IVI over the period from 1999 to 2003. In this initiative, USDOT partnered with individual companies in research projects to facilitate and accelerate marketplace acceptance and adoption of crash-avoidance technologies. In its reports, the committee urged that the ITS program emphasize human factors issues to help avoid the inadvertent introduction of risk in the automation of safety systems. The committee also stressed the importance of studying driver distraction resulting from the introduction of new telecommunications systems into automobiles. Although the committee was impressed by several of the individual initiatives undertaken under the IVI program, it questioned whether the various projects were focused strategically on reaching specific objectives that served the IVI program’s goals. When USDOT began developing the Vehicle Infrastructure Initiative with industry and state partners, it folded the IVI research into this broader initiative.
Review of the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative:
TRB committees also provided a peer review of the ITS program’s efforts to facilitate the development of consensus standards that would hasten the introduction of ITS technologies. The committee issued two brief reports that served to summarize the annual letter reports it issued containing its guidance on the program (Standards for Intelligent Transportation Systems: Review of the Federal Program; TRB 2000 and Special Report 280; Development and Deployment of Standards for Intelligent Transportation Systems Review of the Federal Program; TRB 2004). Over several years, the ITS program supported the development of dozens of standards identified as important by government and industry stakeholders. Among several key standards, the standard for dedicated short-range communications for 5.9 GHz became the foundation upon which the Vehicle Infrastructure Initiative is being conceived and developed. In its review of the standards program, the committee found that its objectives were appropriate and its strategies reasonable and that its execution had made credible contributions to achieving the objectives for the ITS program set forth in federal legislation.