The intention of Sweden's National Transport Policy is to provide society with a well-functioning, safe and clean traffic environment at the lowest possible socio-economic costs. The government of Sweden has pointed out Transport Telematics as a very important field to complement more traditional actions in the road planning, to fulfil the National Transport Policy. Swedish National Road Administration (SNRA) is working very actively in the field of Transport Telematics. SNRA has, since 1989, carried on with tests and field trials in Gothenburg, through Test Site West Sweden which in 1992 became Arena in the field of Transport Telematics. One part of the work with Transport Telematics is to analyse the need and use of Variable Message Signs (VMS). SNRA's purpose with VMS is to make the transport system more efficient, safer and to make sure that the goals for the environment are satisfactory. VMS is a rather new field for SNRA, still in a test phase and implemented in only a few places in Sweden. SNRA is divided into seven Regional Road Management Directorates and they are all participating in the work concerning strategies of VMS. In this work it is very important to decide what kind of messages SNRA should support in different kinds of environments and how the model and system structure will look. SNRA has done some tests concerning message standard, user acceptance, human behaviour, etc. SNRA is also working with analysis concerning the design of signs, for example, the size of the text and the visibility in different weather conditions.
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