A broad view of ITS standards in the US

The intelligent transportation system (ITS) has grown from its beginnings in the 1980s to become a major force in influencing Americans in planning the future of US vehicles and highways. Congress passed legislation in 1991 to define, develop, test and evaluate new technologies and approaches for ITS, resulting in the National ITS Architecture in 1996. Currently, the ITS community is applying the Architecture in the definition and development of voluntary standards, which will enable a wide array of communication applications. The US DOT and ITS America are leading a team of standards developing organizations (SDO) in the development of a robust set of national standards required by both the public and private sectors to reach the national ITS goal: to complete deployment of basic services for consumers of passenger and freight transportation across the nation by 2005. The US leads in North American and other international ITS standards development activities through its role as a member of NAFTA and ISO