Frontier : Demonstration And Evaluation of Intelligent Transportation Systems for the Rural Highway Environment Pooled Fund Study 2005

Efficiency Act (ISTEA) promoted research, demonstration and implementation of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technology. To date, projects have primarily focused on applications of this technology in urban environments to address problems such as congestion, mobility and incident management. The nation's "real" rural highway system (two-lane highways) - which comprises over 80 percent of road mileage in the U.S. and accounts for approximately 40 percent of all vehicle-miles traveled each year - has largely been ignored with respect to ITS. The primary objective of this research effort was to prove that advanced technologies can be successfully transferred to rural environments. The obvious approach in this proof is to deploy, on a small scale, appropriate Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies in rural areas and document the resulting benefits. Potential benefits from this effort align with the national ITS goals of improved safety, efficiency and convenience in travel. In addition, the lessons learned from this effort can further encourage support of and investment in rural ITS applications