CARS (Condition Acquisition Reporting System) and the CARS Group

Th roughout the 1990s and beyond, transportation agencies in the U.S. and Canada identified a need for condition reporting systems, both for internal traffic management and for sharing real-time information with the public, and in 1997, four states in the U.S. pooled their resources to build a first-generation condition reporting system, reducing the cost to each individual agency while also offering the opportunity to collaborate on the requirements and design for the new system. Th e result of this multi-agency effort was CARS (Condition Acquisition Reporting System), which is an ITS standards-based system that allows authorized agency users to enter, view, and share critical road, travel, weather and traffic information. CARS has subsequently been deployed by 17 agencies in the U.S. and Canada, including state departments of transportation, cities/municipalities, and toll authorities - and the group continues to grow. Th is paper discuss the history of the CARS Group and its developments, while also discussing opportunities for expanding it to transportation agencies in other parts of the worldparts of the world.