Lockheed, AT&T; Unveil ‘Smart Highway’ Plans

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. and Lockheed Corp. will link up in a new business venture today that aims to revolutionize the way America drives.

The venture will allow drivers to pay tolls with a credit card, get up-to-the-minute traffic information, read electronic maps and summon emergency help--all while speeding down the nation’s highways.

In joining forces, AT&T; is combining its communications and technology might with Lockheed’s transportation expertise to make headway in a burgeoning field. The two industrial giants say the market for so-called Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems will amount to $200 billion over the next 20 years in the United States. They are already bidding frantically on a number of state toll-booth contracts.

They also say the venture is crucial for antiquated U.S. roadways. Without a solution to congestion, for instance, experts say Californians will be cruising down highways at an average speed of 11 miles per hour by the year 2000.

The General Accounting Office, the research arm of Congress, estimates that traffic tie-ups already cost the nation $100 billion a year in lost productivity.

“We are delighted to take up the challenge and turn our collective strengths toward bringing the nation’s surface transportation system into the 21st Century,” Lockheed Chairman Daniel Tellep said.

“Together Lockheed and AT&T; will help government confront problems that cause many billions of hours of delay, waste billions of gallons of fuel annually and add sharply to pollution and the costs of doing business,” he said.

The two will announce the venture at a news conference in New York today, but they released details Sunday.

The first product that will be offered is an electronic toll system card, which allows cars to bypass the long lines of drivers waiting to pay with cash.

You simply take out a “smart card”--a credit card with a computer chip in it--stick it in a device mounted on your dashboard and speed by. The toll automatically debits your card.

The futuristic dashboard device, known as a “transponder,” is a sophisticated radio that is expected to cost a few hundred dollars--about the amount of a radar detector.

Basking Ridge, N.J.-based AT&T; said its new “smart card,” developed by Bell Laboratories, has even wider applications. Down the road, the companies expect to add other products like an electronic map or an emergency help call. “It’s essentially a two-way radio,” said AT&T; spokesman Michael Jacobs. “A voice can come into your car warning of the accident two miles ahead.”

The companies envision the day when a driver can get advance information on road conditions or call up live images of the road stretching miles ahead on video screens.

One day, electronic systems might sense an accident and steer your car away in a split second--so-called automated vehicle control.

If the venture sounds ambitious, its early goals are not. Delaware, Maryland, Louisiana, New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia already have electronic toll systems set up by Calabasas, Calif.-based Lockheed. AT&T; built one in Italy.

The companies say the system can be applied to road freight, cutting costs and delays for truckers. Technology can collect tolls and measure a truck’s weight--for appropriate levies--while trucks speed on along.

The companies said the venture was formed in response to the Intermodel Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, sponsored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).

The bill authorized spending $150 million over six years for computerizing toll collection.

“Pouring concrete is no longer the best answer to our traffic problems,” said Peter Skarzynski, managing director of IVHS Communications Systems at AT&T.; “We should be making our roads smarter, not wider.”