As a continuation of Project 3-38(1), NCHRP funding of $42,500 was provided toward this broad TRB/NRC policy study. Building on the state-of-the-art as defined under Project 3-38(1), a committee was convened including experts in automotive engineering, highway and traffic engineering, highway administration, electronics and communications, human factors, safety, transportation planning, finance, and public policy. The committee assessed the role that emerging navigation, communication, vehicle identification and control, and other advanced technologies could play in addressing highway congestion, highway safety, and other highway transportation problems. In conducting its assessment, the committee considered questions such as:

• What are specific transportation problems that could be effectively addressed by advanced technologies?
• Which technologies appear the most promising and over what time frame?
• What research and deployment strategies for advanced technologies are appropriate for the U.S. and what types of public-private coalitions are needed?
• What legal, institutional, or other non-technical barriers exist to the introduction of advanced technologies?

After meeting to discuss such questions, the committee reviewed background information on Intelligent Vehicle/Highway Systems (IVHS) activities in the U.S. and other countries and refined the scope of its investigation. The committee decided to focus on organizational and institutional aspects of IVHS, and in particular to consider the appropriate division of responsibilities between the public and private sectors in the development and operation of IVHS and international competitive aspects of IVHS.

Committee's work has been completed and its final report has been published as TRB Special Report 232, "Advanced Vehicle and Highway Technologies."