Automation of the highways, an overview

Highway automation systems must be evolutionary and begin with present vehicles and highways. Development of a simple vehicle tracker as an optional extra on new vehicles to control braking and accelerating on presently controlled-access highways is a necessary first step. Once this device is prevalent, contains built-in self-test, and has engendered public confidence, then automatic steering can easily be added with minimal highway department assistance. This then would lead to a partially automatic highway, approximately ten years after introduction of the vehicle tracker. Finally, when the interim partially automatic system is proven, new highways could be of the completely automatic variety by inclusion of synchronous guidance; the previous vehicle tracker and partial automatic system would then become the first level backup system. Building of completely automatic highways might be anticipated about ten years after introduction of the partially automatic version. It is both economically as well as technically feasible to introduce automatic brake and acceleration control a few years from today for automobile driving on freeways, with complete automatic highways evolving over the years and finally coming to fruition, possibly in the 1990's.