Review of Perspectives on Intelligent Transportation Systems by Joseph M. SussmanPerspectives on Intelligent Transportation SystemsSpringer

Abstract

Intelligent transportation systems ITS have captured the imagination of the transportation community for nearly 20 years. The promise of applying cutting edge information technologies to address the significant surface transportation challenges of society has proven to be compelling to engineers, planners, and policy makers. Of course, with this promise has also come a large amount of hype. A key challenge to transportation professionals as they seek to advance ITS and, in doing so, improve surface transportation, is to go beyond the hype to understand the fundamentals associated with operating complex, large-scale transportation systems. Who better to guide one in this endeavor than Joseph Sussman, a distinguished transportation professional who has been heavily involved in ITS since its inception in the mid-1980s? In his new book, Perspectives on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Dr. Sussman provides a fascinating historical perspective on the development and deployment of ITS. This book is not a technical reference. In fact, there is very little information provided in the book regarding the “bits and bytes” of transportation management or traveler information. Rather, the focus of the book is on the essential organizational, management, and human aspects that underpin ITS. The book is comprised of a series of articles and papers that Dr. Sussman has written between the years 1995–2004. While a reader may initially find this problematic, the inclusion of articles from the mid-90s are, in fact, very beneficial for the following reasons. First, they provide important insight into the intentions behind the creation of the ITS program in the United States. Second, the articles also clearly illustrate how much has changed both technically and institutionally in this relatively short period of time. For example, Dr. Sussman points out that at the time the original ITS Strategic Plan was written, neither the Internet nor the cell phone had become ubiquitous in American culture. Now, one could not imagine ITS or daily life without these technologies. The book is organized in five sections. The first section provides an introduction to ITS. It begins with a description of major ITS functional areas the “traditional” alphabet soup of ATMS, ATIS, AVCS, APTS, CVO, and ARTS . In addition, it