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Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems (IVHS) improve the operation of cars and trucks on public roads by combining information technology with road transportation technologies. The basic ideas about IVHS are by no means new but a number of converging forces have encouraged significant IVHS development in North America recently. Based on the results of a Delphi survey to project realistic future scenarios, both applied and fundamental research agenda are being formulated in a Michigan-based IVHS program to push the IVHS technologies for advanced motorist information systems and for backup vehicle controls under emergency conditions. The scope of the research agenda includes social/human elements as well as hardware and software technological systems. The Michigan research program is expected to contribute to the development of IVHS in North America, both technically and institutionally.

Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems (IVHS) are based on the amalgamation of information technology with automotive and highway technologies to help relieve traffic congestion, improve safety, and reduce pollution and energy wastes. IVHS have been developing rapidly in the past few years in industrialized countries around the world -- Europe, Japan, and North America. On the other hand, the needs for IVHS in the newly industrialized countries (NICs), and the possible roles that these countries may play in the IVHS development, have not been well recognized. Available data suggest that the problems of traffic congestion and fatalities in the large cities of NICs are just as bad as, if not worse than, those in the industrially mature countries. NICs are therefore potential users of IVHS. The city of Singapore has actually gone ahead of the rest of the world in applying IVHS technologies to implement road pricing as a practical means for automotive traffic demand management.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have been effective in alleviating road transport problems around the world and there is much to be gained by sharing ideas and experiences from all countries. The Special Interest Group in International Research and Learning (SIGIRL) within ITS America has been facilitating such mutual learning in the past five years. In addition to sponsoring international research, education, and training sessions held at ITS meetings, SIGIRL has been conducting international workshops and surveys between these meetings. In addition to comparing ITS activities in various countries, selected groups of international researchers are probing new ITS strategies.

Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems (NHS), based on the amalgamation of information technology with automotive and highway technologies, promise to help public authorities improve traffic efficiency and safety, while presenting new business opportunities to many private companies. However, IVHS also present new challenges to the cooperation of public and private sectors in an uncertain new market. Based on a relatively wide range of contacts and discussions with public, private, and academic institutions around the world, the authors try to summarize their observations regarding the organizational responses to IVHS in recent years. Both commonality and differences in these responses are discussed.

Individual road users face a variety of information needs that are met only in some limited way during conventional highway travel. This paper proposes the vision of a technology whose sole purpose is to improve highway travel by introducing into the system intelligent functions which deal with the limitations existing in today's “autonomous” mode of using the highway. Covered in this paper are issues that can be comprehensively addressed by Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems (IVHS) such as 1.) the individual driver's need for information, 2.) the individual driver's need for active assistance, 3.) communal needs for new functionality, and 4.) the whole system effects.

In spite of significant forces pushing for an accelerated development of Intelligent Vehicle-Highway Systems (IVHS) in the United States, no formal national program in IVHS is emerging rapidly. It appears that a number of policy issues, both at the macro and at the micro levels, both domestic and international, need to be resolved before IVHS can be put into place in America. The way in which these issues are to be resolved will probably have significant impacts on both the automotive industry and the infrastructure that supports automotive transportation around the world.