Texas to be U.S. transportation testing ground

by Candace Lombardi May 5, 2010

Texas is about to become IBM's test subject for a series of telematics transportation technologies with the blessing the U.S. Department of Transportation.

IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano plans to announce the news in Houston on Wednesday at the 20th annual meeting of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA 2010), along with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood and Texas Transportation Institute Director Dennis Christiansen. The partnership between IBM and Texas will closely follow the federal intelligent transportation research agenda put forth by Secretary LaHood and the Obama administration.

LaHood announced Tuesday that the Department of Transportation is offering $775 million for transit agencies across the U.S. to upgrade their bus systems, and he plans to announce yet another initiative during a speech at ITSA 2010 on Wednesday regarding vehicle-to-vehicle communication (aka IntelliDrive), according to the DOT.

Vehicle-to-vehicle technology would give cars standard communication by combining a system similar to Wi-Fi with the global positioning system. Drivers would be warned in short advance of an impending collision, sudden lane change, or if the car in front of them is suddenly braking hard. An estimated 76 percent of crashes involving unimpaired drivers could potentially be prevented using the technology, according to DOT statistics.

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