Recent advances in the fields of data communication and automated controls make the implementation of automated highway systems (AHSs) more possible. Currently, substantial research effort is being made on the design of intelligent transportation system (ITS) architectures in Europe, Japan, the United States, and Canada. These architectures, however, have major limitations inherit in the design methodology used. Most ITS developers use a process-oriented approach for the design of the architecture that reduces its quality attributes (stability and flexibility) to future changes. This paper presents an approach to implement object-oriented design methodology in the Canadian intelligent transportation system (C-ITS) architecture for AHS. It was also shown that the C-ITS architecture needs a backup communication system to be integrated within the C-ITS architecture. Such a backup system would aid the reliability of future transportation systems to be developed based on this architecture. The proposed C-ITS architecture promotes flexibility, stability, and communication and, as such, should be of interest to ITS developers and researchers.Key words: intelligent transportation systems, architecture, automated highways, object-oriented approach, backup communication.
