Development of automatic highway advisory radio

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has for several years been concerned with the development of rural communications between roadway and motorist. An early result of this effort is highway advisory radio (HAR) which allows the motorist to tune the automobile's AM receiver to designated low-power stations for traffic information. The FHWA is now sponsoring the development of a fully automatic highway advisory radio (AHAR). A "review, analysis and design" phase has been completed in which prior and ongoing HAR were reviewed, alternative concepts for providing HAR were evaluated, and a design for an engineering model was drawn up. The engineering model, which is currently being fabricated, will permit a comparison of two modes of operation: (1) "real-time" transmission of analog audio and (2) time-compressed, or "burst" transmission of digital data with speech synthesis performed at the receiver. A prototype system using one of these modes is planned for use in a pilot demonstration in which approximately 100 volunteer motorists may participate.