A static image secure transmission in effective representation mode for tr ansportation systems was advanced based on fast watermarking theory. Firstly, the characteristics of image stream re cognition in intelligent transportation system were analyzed and traffic image stream reorganization model was constructed. Then, according to effective representation mode, fast watermarking algorithms of image stream for intelligent transportation system were proposed, such as feature extraction-, compressive sensing- and sparse representation-based algorithms and detailed introduction of the fi rst algorithm was given. Finally, referring to the evaluation criterion of digital watermarking and features of traffic static image, the pe rformance of the above three algorithms are evaluated. The study shows that these three algorithms can satisfy different feature de mands for traffic image secure transmission.