::Smart Roads of the Future.

We've heard about the smart roads of tomorrow for years. But now "intelligent highway" technology is inching into the mainstream. One reason is that the number of vehicles on the road is increasing far faster than our ability to add more roads or widen old ones. Consider these statistics from the Federal Highway Administration (FHA). Over the past 20 years, it says, we've built about 2% more streets and roads, but there are more than 50% more vehicles using them-and they travel 77% more miles.
The result is spreading congestion that is affecting broader metropolitan areas. Pending an unlikely swing away from personal vehicles, traffic planners figure the best solution is to manage traffic flow more efficiently.
That's where smart highways come in. A number of possible solutions were demonstrated last year during a big automated highway expo in San Diego. Among them is high-speed "platooning" in which a smart highway takes control of cars and moves them along, bumper-to-bumper, at 70 miles an hour.
The Road to the Future
Fifty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the act that led to our modern interstate highway system, one of the greatest engineering feats in human history. But despite the impact of the interstate system, roads really haven't changed much since the days when they all led to Rome. They are essentially still inert slabs used to move people and goods from one place to another. But that's about to change. According to experts here at the ITS Congress, future highways will actively improve traffic flow.

Acton is a former GM executive and currently an ITS consultant. He has been instrumental in launching a national initiative called Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII). This is a public-private attempt to bust up gridlock. It's a big, bold, risky plan--one meant to create what amounts to an electronic interstate system. As Philip Tarnoff, director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology at the University of Maryland, says, VII will "manage vehicular traffic similar to the way telephone companies manage telephone traffic." In what was much like a wireless phone call, the two Cadillacs actually spoke to one another. The parked Cadillac sent a message to my car: Stop.

Let's All Talk
To implement VII, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the 50 state DOTs and the carmakers would all work together to create a virtual traffic information network. The state and federal DOTs would tackle infrastructure, installing 100,000 to 300,000 wireless transponders called Roadside Units, or RSUs, along freeways, highways and rural roads, and at major intersections. The automakers would install compatible telematic units, including GPS, in vehicles. Using 5.9-GHz Dedicated Short-Range Communications, a Wi-Fi-like protocol, traveling vehicles would transfer data among themselves and back and forth with the RSUs, which would backhaul data to central management centers. The centers could also send information back to drivers via the RSUs.

Management centers would have a clear picture of a region's traffic flow so they could break up logjams and direct cars to alternate routes. "In Detroit, if I can move 2 to 5 percent of the vehicles to underutilized routes, I can dramatically reduce congestion," says Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) ITS program manager Greg Krueger. "We don't give out alternate route information because we don't have the data. Our advice has to be accurate or the drivers will never believe us again."

However smart our roads become, it all finally comes to the driver. If you drive safe n sound, you can expect to reach home for dinner.

excerpt from Popular Mechanics article

Further Reading and Information Courtesy: My brain, Popular Mechanics, Business Week.