GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
ITS as planned has many aspects and many directions; some representing giant leaps in tech-
nology, others merely awaiting application of already mature technology. Some represent the
need for giant investments in a large infrastructure with others representing little to no invest-
ment in a widespread infrastructure. It seems that most systems generically breakdown into two
categories:
(i) those that exist within the vehicle and that the individual owner of the vehicle is expected
to pay the capital costs for, and
(ii) those systems that exist outside the individual vehicle such as an information advisory
kiosk that will be funded at the state or federal level.
What is also abundantly clear is that there is a diverse list of technologies, as shown in Table 1,
that are critical to the total or even partial success of the ITS program. At a time when the U.S.
is coming off a defense-based economy, and realizing a lot of research and development was driven
by this economy, researchers should feel some degree of security by this list. There will be others
who will realize that early development of products for this market will get them a toe hold into
a very viable, long term growth market as well as providing an economic advantage to the society
of which they belong. The ITS program does not exist just for theoretical research. Indeed, its
successes are marked more by its operational test successes as shown in Figure 2. The operational
test is the step between R&D and deployment. We believe it is significant that so many of these
systems have already reached operational tests.