The intelligent metropolitan area transportation system (IMATS)

Highway congestion is increasing in urban America. This congestion is accompanied by increasing use of single occupant vehicles (SOVs) and decreasing use of multiple occupant vehicles (MOVs), i.e., transit and carpools. The Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis (IDEA) program of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) has sponsored the IMATS program. IMATS is focused on reducing congestion by reversing the trend towards increasing SOV practice, i.e., increasing MOV use. One first step in accomplishing this objective is to outline the limitations of transit, as currently configured, and then to architect a cost effective intermodel urban transit system that overcomes such limitations