Progressive Deployment Steps Leading Toward an Automated Highway System

The most serious challenge to the credibility of highway automation as a potential solution to transportation problems has been the lack of a convincing deployment strategy. Such a strategy is needed to show how to advance, step by step, from today’s transportation system to a future system that includes automated highway systems (AHSs). The existing literature on AHS deployment is reviewed, and a set of principles that can be used to govern the design of AHS deployment strategies is suggested. A deployment sequence for AHSs is proposed, beginning with adaptive cruise control and then adding elements of vehicle-vehicle cooperation and lane protection to build toward AHS capabilities within the constraints of technological and human factors and economic feasibility. Finally, some example deployment “road maps” are shown for transit buses, heavy trucks, and light-duty passenger vehicles.