The purpose of this paper is to outline what transport canada has done and intends to do to achieve applications of expert systems in support of its own and broader sectoral objectives. expert systemsrepresent one of the first areas of commercial development of new computer hardware and software derived from artificial intelligence research programs. the case for innovation in transportation and the objectives and role of transport canada in innovation are briefly reviewed. within this context, the department's understanding of expert systems technologies and their relationship to the transport sector in general and the department in particular is discussed. areas ofapplication for expert systems are outlined; criteria for development of expert systems research and development (r&d) programs are discussed; and transport canada's expert system r&d strategy and current r&d activities are described. the department's current and medium-term r&d activities in this field are outlined. there are two aspects to this work: first, to stimulate awareness of and seek agreement on applications of expert systems to transportation and, second, to develop limited applications in a number of selected areas and, in so doing, both realize benefits from the applications and lay the base for further work in this field. these first applications require alimited number of rules, are amenable to application with the existing base of skills, and are based on available technology. this paper appeared in transportation research record no. 1145, expert systems for transportation applications. for covering abstract see irrd no817754.
Abstract