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The two major transportation industries of America, automobile manufacturing and highway building, have coexisted for a century. Now, more is being asked of this partnership. A growing population that desires a growing economy is confidently predicting the need to make more trips but is not satisfied with the vision of building more roads and highways on which to make them, nor are they satisfied with their safety while on the road. The challenge is improve safety and use more efficiently what we have already built: Hence the USDOT's strategy: to apply automation technology advances to both the vehicles and the highway - and, most importantly, to integrate the two into a vehicle-highway system. Further, to bring about this merger of industries within a framework specifically designed to invite and utilize the participation of all stakeholders interested in this national investment.

AVCS applications for productivity enhancement can be implemented now to produce a positive return on investment, unlike systems developed for the consumer automobile market which will not be commercially available in the near term. This area of development has been previously neglected because commercial vehicle and transit operators have been unaware of the maturity of AVCS technologies. AVCS researchers have focused almost exclusively on safety applications. It is widely believed that barriers to many AVCS applications are more due to institutional, economic, and legal issues than technology limitations. In order to sustain and accelerate the AVCS deployment process, it is desirable to demonstrate the benefits of AVCS in the very near future.