FHWA'S NATIONAL RURAL ATIS STUDY: A STATUS REPORT

A vast majority (85%) of the public roads and street mileage in the United States is in rural and small urban areas with less than 50,000 population. In these areas, user needs have different priorities than typical urban areas and the environment presents significant challenges to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) deployment. Early in 1993, the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) set out to determine applications of ITS that would be of value in rural areas. Specifically, FHWA initiated a research project entitled Rural Applications of Advanced Traveler Information Systems. This paper provides a status report on project activities to date. In addition, it will highlight major findings of the project with emphasis on the results of the most recent project activities. The project was initiated by FHWA to provide a blueprint for the development of technologies, services, and products for future activities regarding rural ATIS. The project objectives are twofold: to guide Federal initiatives with respect to ATIS technologies in rural and small urban areas of the United States; to provide guidelines for ATIS implementation efforts by state and local government agencies. Nearing its completion, project activities to date have established and prioritized information needs, evaluated the national significance of rural problems, assessed the technological opportunities, and developed and evaluated a series of ATIS concepts for application in rural areas. These activities led to development of a series of recommendations for future rural ATIS initiatives for which FHWA could play an important role.