Detailed Report On AUTOMATED HIGHWAY SYSTEM

An automated highway system (AHS) or Smart Road is a proposed intelligent transportation system technology designed to provide for driverless cars on specific rights-of-way. It is most often touted as a means of traffic congestion relief, since it drastically reduces following distances and thus allows more cars to occupy a given stretch of road.

Background

Every major city suffers from the problems that are related to increasing mobility demands. Cities have to deal with pollution, congestion and safety problems caused by increasing traffic. Traditional transport systems are not sufficient anymore to cope with these increasing problems.

With the exception of some automatically operated metro systems (Paris, London and Lille) and some recently introduced automated buses and people-movers (Clermont-Ferrand, Eindhoven and Capelle aan de IJssel), transport systems in the present-day European city are mostly of a traditional type.

automated highway system will contribute to innovative solutions that will allow increased mobility in a well-controlled manner, using technologies with low pollution, high safety levels and a much increased efficiency, using either  a separate infrastructure or existing roads. In future mobility scenarios, such new transport systems will be part of the urban environment. These new transport systems will be the answer to the new mobility demands of the future society. In our vision, the urban mobility will be greatly supported by new transport system concepts, which are able to improve the efficiency of road transport in dense areas while at the same time help to reach the zero accident target and minimize nuisances.

Objectives

Automated highway system’s ambitious goals can be achieved by:

v    Developing advanced concepts for advanced road vehicles for passengers and goods. Most of the earlier projects addressed isolated aspects of the mobility problems of cities, whereas AUTOMATED HIGHWAY SYSTEM   focuses on the overall urban transportation problem

v    Introducing new tools for managing urban transport. AUTOMATED HIGHWAY SYSTEM   will develop tools that can help cities to cross the thresholds that are preventing them from introducing innovative systems. For instance, the absence of certification procedures and the lack of suitable business models will be addressed.

v    Taking away barriers that are in the way of large-scale introduction of automated systems. Some of these barriers are of a technological nature, some are of a legal or administrative nature: for example, the legal requirement for vehicles using public roads where the driver is responsible for the vehicle at all times, which effectively prohibits driverless vehicles from using public roads.

v    Validating and demonstrating the concepts, methods and tools developed in AUTOMATED HIGHWAY SYSTEM   in European cities. In a number of other cities, studies will be carried out to show that an automated transport system is not only feasible, but will also contribute to a sustainable solution for the city’s mobility problems, now and in the future.

v    To survey and document automated highway system with pedestrian safety systems on roads. These systems include crossing control arms, video cameras, radar and acoustic detection systems, skirts, and collision avoidance systems.

How it works

In one scheme, the roadway has magnetized stainless-steel spikes driven one meter apart in its center The car senses the spikes to measure its speed and locate the center of the lane. Furthermore, the spikes can have either magnetic north or magnetic south facing up. The roadway thus has small amounts of digital data describing interchanges, recommended speeds, etc.

The cars have power steering and automatic speed controls, which are controlled by a computer.

The cars organize themselves into platoons of eight to twenty-five cars. The platoons drive themselves a meter apart, so that air resistance is minimized. The distance between platoons is the conventional braking distance. If anything goes wrong, the maximum number of harmed cars should be one platoon.

                                                Fig no.1 intelligent vehicle  with sensors and actuators

Theory

In order to achieve an optimal utilization of the existing transportation system, the authorities strive to alleviate the prevailing car-caused problems by means of coordinating physical flows of road traffic. In addition, they take into account preserving accessibility and environment as well as enhancing road safety. These processes take place at a given demand for road traffic that is assumed to be fixed in time and place (i.e., no demand management). As far as the above- mentioned aims are concerned, we distinguish two classes of involved information systems

• Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS) and
• Advanced Traffic Control Systems (ATCS).

Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS)

The class of Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS) is area-oriented and concentrates on a (certain part of a) road network (e.g. congregated sections of the freeway network or parts of the urban or the rural network). The traffic performance on the remaining (parts of the) road networks are considered to be of less interest for ATMS. For the concerning area, ATMS aim at an optimal traffic performance at system level, which might be expressed as serving as many cars on the concerning road network, dissipating a minimum total travel time. In this way, ATMS strive for a system optimum.

To achieve a system optimum, ATMS require relevant information about the actual system performance on the entire road infrastructure under consideration. Only in this way, ATMS can dynamically adjust or distribute the actually offered traffic to or over the available infrastructural capacity by means of traffic management measures. The information about the actual status of the traffic (and the infrastructure) should be available in real-time (e.g. in time intervals of 1 to 5 minutes) and concerns traffic data that is aggregated to a certain extent. An important characteristic of ATMS applications is that decisions are made and measures are (seen to be) implemented by traffic managers in the traffic center, which complete the collected external data collections with know-how gathered by training and experience.

Since the administrators of ATMS applications are the road authorities, which are also responsible for the road infrastructure, an ATMS monitoring system is obviously based on fixed traffic detectors that are mounted in, above or along the road infrastructure. We will refer to this type of detectors as infrastructure based traffic detectors. As a consequence of the network-wide oriented nature of ATMS, an ATMS monitoring system using fixed, infrastructure based traffic detectors (e.g. inductive loops) is characterized by rather large detector spacing’s (typically of 5 to 10 kilometers. Shorter distances between the detectors would make such a network-wide monitoring system financially prohibitive.

A typical example of an ATMS application is Incident Management, which deals with swiftly detecting disturbances in the traffic flows, estimating expected delay, determining spare capacity of the remaining road links and proportionally distributing traffic over the entire network.

Advanced Traffic Control Systems (ATCS)

Advanced Traffic Control Systems (ATCS) serves as 'executive complement' to the class of Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS). ATCS are local-oriented and concentrate on certain parts of the road infrastructure (i.e., critical or notorious bottlenecks, such as bridges, tunnels and on/off ramps). For these local sites, ATCS aim at an optimal traffic performance at local level. This might be expressed as serving as many of the offered cars as possible in a time period that is as short as possible, so dissipating a minimum total time loss. In this way, ATCS strive for a local optimum.

The instruments belonging to the class of ATCS are more or less rigid standard operations, which can be fully automated and need no human intervention. Hence, according to the definition of information systems given before, ATCS constitute no true information system (the component 'persons' is not involved). The exact objectives of the particular ATCS can be modified by the corresponding ATMS, for instance by adjusting certain parameters. The complexity of computer models and the calculation speed of computers restrict area-wide application of ATCS, because computations and actions need to be performed in real-time. The data collections for ATCS should be very accurate, possibly relate to individual vehicles and be directly available in real-time (e.g. in intervals of several seconds to 1 minute).

As a consequence of the local oriented nature of ATCS, an ATCS monitoring system exclusively concerns the direct vicinity of the corresponding (ATCS) traffic control system and basically only provides traffic data for this control system. Moreover, only fixed, infrastructure based traffic detectors (e.g. inductive loops) with very small detector spacings (typically of some hundreds of meters) will be suitable. Since ATCS applications concern only a very limited geographical area, these detector spacings are financially affordable. Longer distances between the detectors, or utilization of non-infrastructure based traffic detectors is not eligible as this can only provide data with a accuracy and a reliability that will be too low for ATCS.

A typical example of an ATC system application is ramp metering, which deals with gradually allowing vehicles on the on-ramp to enter the freeway, depending on the proportion between the actual flow and capacity of the freeway. Almost all traffic systems that are currently employed belong to the class of ATCS applications.

Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS)

Where the road authorities aim at achieving an optimal utilization of 'their' transportation system, in general, road users may be assumed to be predominantly interested in accomplishing an optimal route from their origin to their destination over this infrastructure (user optimum). This might be expressed in a minimal travel time (or a minimal generalized time, so comprising the actual or perceived travel time, traveled distance, et cetera) for their entire trip. The third class of applications of transportation telematics that we distinguish, the class of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS), supports the road user in achieving this task. Hence, the core objective of ATIS is to provide each road user with the information he or she needs to achieve his or her specific travel objectives, within the limiting conditions dictated by the various ATMS and ATCS applications. In this way, ATIS strive for several individual users optima.

For the purpose of supporting and achieving several individual users' optima, ATIS require information about complete routes from origin to destination, about delays on the regular route, about the travel time on alternative routes and about alternative ways of available transport, at the moment of passage. This implies that specific parts of different networks (urban, rural and state) that are relevant during a specific trip are of interest, with information about delays on routes at the moment they will actually be used (requiring short term predictions) instead of instantaneous information. Hence, the regular traffic information to be obtained for ATIS purposes may become available every rather long time interval of for instance 5 to 15 minutes (incidents should be reported more swiftly). These characteristics are in sharp contradiction to the information requirements of ATMS applications, which demand predominantly actual (i.e. real-time) information about one, but entire network.

As a consequence of the established characteristics of ATIS information, i.e. both area-wide and concerning several networks that cover each entire route, an ATIS monitoring system can not always practically be based on fixed, infrastructure based traffic detectors. In particular installing fixed traffic detectors in an entire urban road network, requiring extremely short detector spacing’s due to the close-meshed urban road infrastructure, would be unrealistic. Furthermore, in consideration of the opposite objectives of ATMS and ATIS, an ATIS monitoring system should preferably be independent of an ATMS monitoring system and preferably be based on anything but infrastructure based traffic detectors exploited by government or state. For these specific ATIS purposes, one can use a monitoring system based on non-infrastructure based detectors, such as probe vehicles. These are normal vehicles that participate in the traffic flow, are equipped with a location and communication device and accordingly transmit experienced traffic data to a traffic center. 

 1) Implementation:-

            We are set to begin testing an intelligent transportation system in Japan that allows vehicle- infrastructure communication to help reduce traffic accidents and ease congestion. The system uses information obtained from nearby vehicles and roadside optical beacons to wirelessly alert drivers to potential danger from approaching vehicles. It also provides drivers with fastest-route information with Nissan’s probe server collecting city –wide traffic data from the mobile phones of Nissan’s CARWINGS navigation service subscribers, taxi services, and vehicle data collected by mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo. This information is then sent to the driver’s navigation screen where it is displayed as real-time maps showing the traffic flow and density. Screen shots and diagrams here.

                                                Fig no.2.Actual Smart vehicle system

The test, which is being conducted to evaluate the receptivity of drivers to such a system, run from Oct. 1, 2006 until the end of March 2009 in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 25 kilometers southwest of Tokyo. About 10,000 drivers, who must be subscribers to Nissan’s CARWINGS navigation service, participated in the test.

The trial tested the following components of the system:

Vehicle alert

This system alerts drivers to the presence of vehicles moving too fast at blind intersections. For example, if the system determines that a car is approaching a driver too fast from the left, a buzzer will sound and a voice recording will call out: “Car approaching from left.” At the same time, an image of an approaching vehicle will appear on the driver’s CARWINGS navigation screen. The system will also alert a driver when is detects that he or she approaching a stop sign or red traffic light too fast.

Speed alert

This system warns drivers when they are speeding in a school zone. As soon as a driver passes the speed limit in the area, a buzzer will sound and a voice recording will warn: “School ahead. Watch your speed.” An image of a school zone sign will also appear on the driver’s navigation screen.

Dynamic route finder

This system informs drivers of the quickest route to their destination using probe data collected from mobile phones of CARWINGS subscribers, including taxi owners, as well as vehicle data collected by mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo. All of the data is sent to Nissan’s probe server where it is collectively processed into traffic information. The data is then sent to the driver’s navigation screen where it is displayed in the form of real-time maps showing the traffic flow of a greater coverage of roads compared to VICS (Vehicle Information and Communications System), a public service providing similar information via FM multiplex broadcasting, as well as radio wave and infrared beacons

2) Methodology:-

Nissan’s intelligent transportation system (ITS) , which employs vehicle-to-infrastructure communication to enable synchronized communication between vehicles and traffic light signals, is about to begin the next test-phase. Nissan is installing the advanced traffic signal infrastructure within its Nissan Technical Center in Kanagawa to collect real-world vehicle data from several hundred employee cars participating in the project. The new advanced traffic system is designed to reduce accidents as well as ease traffic congestion, leading to improved on-the-road fuel consumption.

                                                Fig no.4.Vehicle alert

The test-phase conducted within Nissan’s premises is representative of real-world traffic conditions, where relevant data from vehicles can be collected and analyzed under a closely-monitored environment. The vehicle-data input and corresponding traffic-signal output from the intersections is computed by an advanced traffic light system specifically installed for the test program.

Two intersecting main roads, one running east-west for two kilometers and the other running north-south for one kilometer, each with multiple intersections and crosswalks, provide the basic parameters for the ITS experiment. Nissan has installed standard traffic lights and roadside optical beacons along these test-roads. Traffic data can be collected from the employee cars and shuttle buses without any on-board vehicle-modification. However, for specific data to support the development of the navigation program under testing, several hundred employee cars will be equipped with the Vehicle Information and Communications System units.

                                    Fig no.5.diagrametic view of implementation of sensors

A new Distance Control Assist System, an electronic system that helps drivers control the distance between themselves and the vehicle in front. The system is able to determine the distance to the car in front, as well as the relative speed of both cars, using a radar sensor in the front bumper.

If the driver releases the accelerator pedal or is not pressing the accelerator pedal, the system automatically applies the brakes. If the system determines that braking is required, an indicator will appear on the instrument panel and a buzzer will sound simultaneously. The accelerator pedal then automatically moves upwards to assist the driver in switching to the brakes. The new system is especially useful in heavy traffic when frequent braking is required.

The Distance Control Assist System is the latest innovation developed under Nissan’s Safety Shield concept, and accident prevention and management approach based on the idea of "vehicles that help protect people".

The Safety Shield concept was introduced in 2004, and revolves around Nissan’s aims to help create a safe motorized society in which there are no traffic accidents. The company is continuously working to design and engineer safer vehicles and has set a goal of halving by 2015 the number of fatal and serious injuries involving Nissan vehicles as compared to the 1995 level.

Use of CELL Phone:-

Nissan’s intelligent transportation system test is being implemented in cooperation with NTT DoCoMo, consumer electronics maker Matsushita Electric, and Xanavi Informatics, a maker of vehicle navigation systems and software. Matsushita Electric developed the roadside optical beacons for the test in conjunction with Japan’s National Police Agency, the Kanagawa Prefectural Police Headquarters and the Universal Traffic Management Society of Japan (UTMS).

Nissan's new enhanced on-board navigation system will provide drivers with more information to make safer and greener driving decisions. The company is launching an automotive navigation system that uses intelligent transportation system (ITS) infrastructure and other advanced technology to warn drivers of low-visibility intersections, school zones, and navigation-linked speed control. The navigation system can also recommend faster route calculations, which can lead to fuel savings.

                                    Fig no.6.use of cell phone for addressing vehicle

We’ve written before about Intelligent Transportation Systems in general and in particular, Nissan’s ongoing development and trials of Intelligent Transportation Systems in Japan, but a new development is the use of cell phone technology to help reduce accidents involving pedestrians. Nissan is researching the pedestrian-related communication involving the transmitting of pedestrian position data to vehicles via the Global Positioning System (GPS). Nissan's advanced ITS employs the next 3G cellular communications system, just launched in Japan, where the GPS function is used as the basis to provide location information of the cellular phone. In this system, location data transmitted from the pedestrian's cellular phone and vehicle is fed to the ITS to allow the system to determine the corresponding positions between the pedestrian and the vehicle. A pedestrian alert will appear onboard the vehicle to warn the driver, helping to reduce road accidents particularly in a blind-spot situation.

This advanced ITS research consists of the following process:

1) Via cellular packet communications, the system wirelessly collects probe data from the vehicle (such as position and speed) and position data from pedestrians. The received data is then computed to determine the corresponding location of the vehicle relative to the pedestrians on the road. Cellular packet communications is a method of data transfer where the data to be sent and received are divided into packets of a specific size, allowing a singular line to be shared among many users and increasing efficiency in telecommunications.

2) The ITS detects pedestrians ahead of the vehicle, and send a warning alert to the driver at the event of a potential conflict.

Nissan is studying what types of pedestrian data are most relevant to help prevent accidents. The research will investigate a variety of factors influencing the pedestrian-vehicle's relative positions, such as the directions, in which pedestrians and the vehicle are moving, and the corresponding speeds and distances between them. Various driver alerts, such as visual warnings or audible alarms, are also under study.

Nissan is studying and developing the ITS with technical collaboration from NTT DoCoMo Inc. on cellular communications technology.

This current research aims to join and contribute to the ITS project, which is a Nissan experimental program conducted in Kanagawa Prefecture that begun in October 2006. The program is aimed at efforts to help reduce traffic accidents and congestion utilizing real-time driving-data collected from the vehicles.

The ITS project allows Nissan to test various technology concepts and develop the most suitable technology solution for wide-scale application.

The next 3G cellular communications system uses digital cellular phones that meet the International Telecommunication Union's MT-2000 specification, allowing high-speed data transfers and delivery of high-volume multi-media information, including sound, images and video. The world's first 3G service, employing the W-CDMA system, was FOMA by NTT DoCoMo, which became available in October 2001. FOMA is a registered trademark of NTT DoCoMo Inc.

The new navigation system, which the company says is the world’s first to incorporate ITS information in a production vehicle, will be included on the next generation Nissan Fuga late in 2009 in Japan.

The Nissan Fuga is a full-sized luxury car pitched against the Honda Legend, Toyota Crown, BMW 5 series, Mercedes-Benz E-class and Audi A6.

ITS technology capitalizes on modern communication and information technology networks and can be incorporated into existing transportation management systems in order to optimize vehicle life, fuel efficiency and safety. It is also viewed as one method of reducing traffic congestion by advising motorists of traffic hazards and alternate routes.

Nissan's new navigation system will include four advanced features in addition to the standard functions:

• intersection/signal warning
• elementary school-zone alerts
• navigation-linked speed control
• enhanced route search and calculation

The goal of the enhanced navigation system is to help prevent accidents at intersections and raise awareness for safer driving.

Safety features

Intersection and signal warning Using information transmitted from the Driving Safety Support System (DSSS), drivers can receive audible and display warnings when approaching some low-visibility intersections.

School zone alerts

When the vehicle enters an elementary school zone and the system determines that a safety warning is appropriate, based on real-time vehicle information (speed, acceleration, braking, etc.), it provides audible and display warnings to direct driver attention. This feature is already available in the recently-released Nissan Skyline Crossover.

Navigation-linked speed control

The system can slow the vehicle’s speed through engine braking, for instance, if it determines the car is traveling too fast for the sharpness of a corner or is approaching a tollgate too quickly. This can also make driving more fuel efficient. This feature is currently in use on the Nissan Eco series, a line of greener cars released in Japan in April.

Faster route searches

Using probe data (wireless) traffic information from individual vehicles sent to the Carwings Center, this system supplies information for roads, such as waiting times at intersections and traffic signals and delivers it to other vehicles in the area. Using this information for route calculation makes route searches more precise, moves traffic faster, reduces traffic congestion and promotes greener driving.

ADVANTAGES:-

1. Help reduce pedestrian accidents: Traffic signals place priority on crossing pedestrians

Based on the traffic-volume conditions, the system will calculate to optimize the timing lapse between crossing pedestrians and the change in traffic-signal. At times, pedestrians tend to ignore prohibitive red traffic signals at road-crossings when they do not observe any vehicles within sight, which is a common cause of accidents. The current test program will contribute to Nissan’s research findings on ways to avoid such accidents.

                                    Fig no.7.School proximity sensors

In principle, when traffic conditions are lighter in the daytime, the pedestrian signal remains on green while the driver signal is maintained on red. When a vehicle approaches and stops at the light, the vehicle-system communicates with the traffic light beacon, which then allows the signal to switch to green. This system emphasizes the safety of the pedestrians by ensuring the pedestrian has the right-of-way each time.

When a driver slows down accordingly on approaching an intersection, the system again synchronizes the timing of the green signal with the approaching vehicle to minimize the need for repeated stops and acceleration, thus improving on-the-road fuel consumption under city-driving conditions. The test program will also include a virtual school zone*2, which will appear as a warning alert to speeding vehicles on its on-board navigation display.

2) Help reduce collisions due to traffic-signal oversights: Have traffic-signal alerts on-board vehicles

                                    Fig no.08.fig shows graphically alert for other vehicle

The traffic-signal alert system automatically appears on the navigation display as a vehicle enters within a specified distance to an approaching traffic light. This alert system is already being tested on public roads under the ITS project in Kanagawa. To help minimize accidents due to traffic-signal oversights,

2)      Reduce congestion caused by red traffic signals and right-turn queues

                                    Fig no.09.right turn signal and vehicle detector

Traffic congestion is often caused by red traffic signals and vehicles queuing to take a right turn from one lane streets. Nissan is developing its ITS system to optimize the timing intervals between changing traffic signals to correspond with real-time traffic volume and flow in order to ease traffic congestion. The advanced system is able to detect and respond to right-turning vehicles, thus reducing the queuing time and improve traffic flow at intersections. Current research is moving forward on methods to synchronize groups of traffic signals to facilitate smooth traffic flow over a wider scope of traffic conditions.

This next phase of Nissan’s ITS research aims to optimize communication between vehicles and traffic signals to create an advanced traffic system where traffic signals operate in tandem with the vehicle-data input according to varying traffic conditions. Nissan hopes to help reduce traffic accidents and road congestion. Looking ahead, the company will continue working closely with the relevant government agencies in bringing the current experiment onto public roads under the existing ITS project in Kanagawa.

Under the Nissan Green Program 2010, announced in December 2006, Nissan is working to develop new technologies to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions from its vehicle line-up and global operating facilities. The ITS project in Kanagawa contributes to the NGP 2010 objectives by reducing traffic congestion and vehicle CO2 emissions through improved on-the-road fuel consumption.

APPLICATIONS:-

Electronic toll collection:-Electronic toll collection (ETC) makes it possible for vehicles to drive through toll gates at traffic speed, reducing congestion at toll plazas and automating toll collection. Originally ETC systems were used to automate toll collection, but more recent innovations have used ETC to enforce congestion pricing through cordon zones in city centers and ETC lanes.

Until recent years, most ETC systems were based on using radio devices in vehicles that would use proprietary protocols to identify a vehicle as it passed under a gantry over the roadway. More recently there has been a move to standardize ETC protocols around the Dedicated Short Range Communications protocol that has been promoted for vehicle safety by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, ERTICO and ITS Japan.

While communication frequencies and standards do differ around the world, there has been a broad push toward vehicle infrastructure integration around the 5.9 GHz frequency (802.11.x WAVE).

Via its National Electronic Tolling Committee representing all jurisdictions and toll road operators, ITS Australia also facilitated interoperability of toll tags in Australia for the multi-lane free flow tolls roads.

Other systems that have been used include barcode stickers, license plate recognition, infrared communication systems, and Radio Frequency Identification Tags.

 Emergency vehicle notification systems:-The in-vehicle eCall is an emergency call generated either manually by the vehicle occupants or automatically via activation of in-vehicle sensors after an accident. When activated, the in-vehicle eCall device will establish an emergency call carrying both voice and data directly to the nearest emergency point (normally the nearest E1-1-2 Public-safety answering point, PSAP). The voice call enables the vehicle occupant to communicate with the trained eCall operator. At the same time, a minimum set of data will be sent to the eCall operator receiving the voice call.

The minimum set of data contains information about the incident, including time, precise location, the direction the vehicle was traveling, and vehicle identification. The pan-European eCall aims to be operative for all new type-approved vehicles as a standard option. Depending on the manufacturer of the eCall system, it could be mobile phone based (Bluetooth connection to an in-vehicle interface), an integrated eCall device, or a functionality of a broader system like navigation, Telematics device, or tolling device. eCall is expected to be offered, at earliest, by the end of 2010, pending standardization by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute and commitment from large EU member states such as France and the United Kingdom.

Automatic road enforcement

A traffic enforcement camera system, consisting of a camera and a vehicle-monitoring device, is used to detect and identify vehicles disobeying a speed limit or some other road legal requirement and automatically ticket offenders based on the license plate number. Traffic tickets are sent by mail. Applications include:

• Speed cameras that identify vehicles traveling over the legal speed limit. Many such devices use radar to detect a vehicle's speed or electromagnetic loops buried in each lane of the road.
• Red light cameras that detect vehicles that cross a stop line or designated stopping place while a red traffic light is showing.
• Bus lane cameras that identify vehicles traveling in lanes reserved for buses. In some jurisdictions, bus lanes can also be used by taxis or vehicles engaged in car pooling.
• Level crossing cameras that identify vehicles crossing railways at grade illegally.
• Double white line cameras that identify vehicles crossing these lines.
• High-occupancy vehicle lane cameras for that identify vehicles violating HOV requirements.
• Turn cameras at intersections where specific turns are prohibited on red. This type of camera is mostly used in cities or heavy populated areas.

Collision avoidance systems

Japan has installed sensors on its highways to notify motorists that a car is stalled ahead.

Dynamic Traffic Light Sequence

Intelligent RFID traffic control has been developed for dynamic traffic light sequence. It has circumvented or avoided the problems that usually arise with systems such as those, which use image processing and beam interruption techniques. RFID technology with appropriate algorithm and data base were applied to a multi vehicle, multi lane and multi road junction area to provide an efficient time management scheme. A dynamic time schedule was worked out for the passage of each column. The simulation has shown that, the dynamic sequence algorithm has the ability to intelligently adjust itself even with the presence of some extreme cases. The real time operation of the system able to emulate the judgment of a traffic policeman on duty, by considering the number of vehicles in each column and the routing proprieties.

CONCLUSION:-

          Automated Highway System’s did not replace people; they just allowed another market to evolve. Remember that we designed the Automated Highway System’s to solve the problem of Traffic congestion.

                                    Hence we see that the automated highway system is very helpful in traffic, on right turns, on congested roads, for commercial vehicle, for lonely road transport by helping the driver and reducing chances of accident helping users a better driving.

FUTURE SCOPE:-

From discussions with experts around the world, a first-generation of vehicle-highway automation is coming into focus, in which automated vehicles operate on today's roads with no extensive infrastructure modifications required. Early co-pilot systems would evolve to auto-pilots gradually. These vehicles would operate at spacing’s a bit tighter than commuter flows of today, with traffic flow benefits achieved through vehicle-cooperative systems as well as vehicle-infrastructure cooperation.

The vehicles may cluster in 'designated lanes' which are also open to normal vehicles, or may be allowed on high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to increase their proximity to one another and therefore get the benefits of cooperative operations (access to HOV lanes also creates a powerful incentive for consumers to invest in these systems). Stabilization of traffic flow and modest increases in capacity are seen as the key outcomes.

Once this level of functionality is proven and in broad use, a second generation scenario comes into play which expands to dedicated lanes, presumably desired by a user population with a high percentage of automation-capable vehicles. With growing use, networks of automated vehicle lanes would develop, offering the high levels of per-lane capacity achievable through close-headway operations.

Now, depending on who you talk to, this type of evolution could take a while. First generation vehicle-highway automation for passenger cars is at least 10 years away, with estimates for second generation implementation hovering around 2025. Although many years away, this time horizon is definitely not too far out for transportation planners to consider the advent of such capability in their long-range planning processes. But if you have the inclination, a vehicle with automated capability could be available from a car dealer near you much sooner.

Semi-automated bus systems are now being developed for Eindhoven in the Netherlands and the French cities of Clermont-Ferrand and Rouen. In the states, automatic guidance is a key component of the Bus Rapid Transit concept being advanced by the Federal Transit Administration. Over a dozen US transit agencies are involved in the BRT Consortium, and several are actively considering automated guidance for precision docking (to improve efficiency in passenger loading) and exclusive lane operation in narrow, confined corridors. Implementation of automated guidance is underway in Las Vegas and is expected to begin soon in Eugene, Oregon, Hartford, Conn. and Cleveland, Ohio

Another pioneer in automated public transport is Toyota, which has developed the Integrated Multimodal Transport System (IMTS). Demonstrated at Demo 2000 last December in Japan, the IMTS uses AHS technology to operate several buses in close-headway platoons, all under automated control. The system is slated to begin service this year, serving transit needs at a major theme park in Japan.