'Smart' cars, roads can cut congestion

Since 1956, when construction of the interstate highway system began, travel on U.S. roads has more than tripled. Even today, the number of miles driven increases at the rate of 5% a year. Between 1970 and 1985, the number of vehicles in the U.S. increased by 63%, while road and street mileage grew only 5%.

These are the ingredients of gridlock, experienced most dramatically on American urban interstates at rush hour, when nearly two-thirds of traffic moves at less than 35 mph.

Mobility 2000, a respected group of transportation leaders from business, government and academe, puts the costs of this congestion at $41 billion per year in the 25 largest U.S. cities - and the cost is growing.

The consequences of gridlock are widespread. Gridlock reduces U.S. international competitiveness because it hampers our ability to move people and products to markets quickly, safely and cheaply. It reduces property values areas where it is severe.

Gridlock reduces disposable income because it affects insurance rates, the costs of commuting, and other costs that people pay from their paychecks. Gridlock produces dirty air.

However, because of severe environmental and financial constraints that limit building new highways through built-up areas where congestion occurs, we need new ways to expand the capacity of existing transportation corridors.

Enter "smart cars" and "smart highways", a new initiative by government and industry to make better use of the streets and highways we already have. This approach worked extremely well during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, even though only primitive technologies were available.

Earlier this month, I participated in a conference in Orlando, Fla., where U.S. Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner joined with state highway officials and business leaders to announce a new initiative to use technology to add efficiency, capacity and safety to our nation's highways - without adding pavement. The leaders came from the automobile, computer, telecommunications, software and construction industries.

The initiative, called Integrated Vehicle-/Highway Systems, or IVHS, includes electronic and telecommunications gizmos that provide real-time information to drivers about accidents, congestion, routing, and roadside services.

IVHS would, for example, permit a commuter to punch in his home location and his office destination. The IVHS system would display the fastest, though maybe not the shortest, route to travel at that hour.

More advanced IVHS systems would permit "platooning," autos clustered together traveling at 50-plus mph. This would increase the capacity of a freeway lane from 2,000 cars per minute to as high as 7,000, the same as building three new lanes.

IVHS lets transportation leaders in the United States, Japan and Europe use new strategies and technologies rather than new pavement to reduce congestion, pollution and accidents.

Compared to old strategies, IVHS is also likely to be more cost-effective.