Traffic is considered to be a highly self-regulating system. As long as the number of vehicles will stay beneath a critical point, problems can be avoided by supplying sufficient and relevant information. Drivers will make their own decisions based on that, or can be supported by navigation systems.

Traditionally road authorities will supply the information targeted on a broad group of drivers, and in-car systems will narrow it down to individual usage.

With the growth of navigation devices and the availability of traffic data, the role of the road authority in informing the drivers in a generic way will gradually fade out.

But within the network system there is a critical point after which more is needed to keep the network performance at an acceptable level.

Measures must be taken to facilitate the surplus of cars. And depending on the severity more control must be taken, or traffic should be explicitly guided. Since in these cases the individual interests, must be weight against the general interest this will be the domain of the authorities.

Traditionally there is a gap between the domain of the service providers and the road authorities.

To bridge this gap a shift is needed from the traditional view on the subject, to a functional view of the problem area.