ITS: What We Know Now that We Wish We Knew Then: A Retrospective on the ITS 1992 Strategic Plan

Abstract

From September 1991 until June 1992, a core writing team, which included the author, worked on what was the first Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) strategic plan in the United States. This plan was entitled, "A Strategic Plan for IVHS in the United States." It served to define the ITS program at a national scale in a way that has been characterized as seminal. The plan, by most accounts, served as the blueprint for the early development of ITS in the U.S. and as the basis for the subsequent plans produced by ITS America, the federal government, various states, and a number of private-sector organizations. This paper explores numerous aspects of ITS retrospectively, contrasting views from 11 years ago, when the Strategic Plan was produced, with the current reality. Areas discussed include Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS), Advanced Transportation Management Systems (ATMS), reliability, getting the ITS program off the ground in the early 90s, strategic use of information, automated network management, electronic toll collection (ETC), congestion pricing, architecture, commercial vehicle operations (CVO), Advanced Public Transportation Systems (APTS), and regions. The paper closes by comparing ITS with the Interstate, and finally by discussing the upcoming reauthorization of the Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) and what has been learned through this retrospective about ITS-related issues on that reauthorization.