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Two Intelligent Vehicle Pioneers to Receive SAE DELCO Intelligent Transportation Systems Award

17 January 2000

Two Intelligent Vehicle Pioneers to Receive SAE DELCO Intelligent Transportation Systems Award 
    WARRENDALE, Pa., Jan. 17 -- Martin Thoone, vice president
product strategy & planning, Mannesman VDO, Wetzlar, Germany, and James H.
Rillings, lab group manager for vehicle information technologies, General
Motors Research and Development Center, Warren, Michigan, have been named
recipients of the SAE DELCO Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Award for
2000.
    The awards will be presented at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
Honors Convocation and Luncheon at the SAE 2000 World Congress at Cobo Center,
Detroit, Michigan on Tuesday, March 7.
    The award recognizes individuals whose outstanding technical
accomplishments are judged to have significantly advanced the state of the art
in Intelligent Transportation Systems.
    Thoone is known as "The Father of In-Vehicle Route Guidance."  He was the
guiding force in creating the enabling technologies necessary to bring ITS
into the lives of ordinary people.  He persuaded his corporate management to
support leading initiatives that transformed early ITS paper studies into
affordable consumer products and far-reaching government programs.
    In addition to his regular duties, Thoone served as lead delegate in
pan-European ITS public-private partnerships, standards development efforts
and operational field tests.  These efforts resulted in bringing real-time
traffic broadcasts to drivers throughout Europe.
    Rillings served as overall program manager for the joint public-private
sector TravTek advanced traveler information system in Orlando, Florida from
1990-93.  He was also program manager for the National Automated Highway
System Consortium from 1994-97, including the highly successful Demo '97 held
in San Diego.  These demonstrations are recognized by the U.S. Department of
Transportation, the international community, the media and the general public
as two of the most influential and successful ITS projects in the world to
date.
    Currently serving as a member of the technical advisory group of the
International Standards Organization (ISO) TC204, Rillings is chairman of
SAE's ITS Program Office and is active in issues of interest to the SAE ITS
Division/SAE Technical Standards Board.
    SAE 2000 World Congress is the world's largest showcase of automotive
engineering technologies.  The event, which runs March 6-9, 2000, features
more than 1,200 exhibiting companies, includes 90 percent of the world's top
25 suppliers.
    For further information or to register for SAE Congress, call
1-877-SAE-CONG (723-2664) or visit http://www.sae.org.