The Low Cost ITS concept was introduced for the first time during PIARC 2012-2015 cycle. The concept described ITS services that were attractive to resource limited or Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). This was possible because of the recent emergence of inexpensive technological solutions including information systems based on the collection of probe vehicle data or information harvesting from social networks-based software applications. However, the concept was not formally defined. Upon further consideration, application of low cost ITS concerns both LMICs and High-Income Countries (HIC's). This is driven by the need to reduce public expenditure, including investment and operating costs during the life cycle of ITS services.

The objective of this report is to perform an in-depth investigation of the Low cost ITS concept to clarify its definition and investigate all related aspects: service areas, stakeholders and value chain, business model and costs, system architecture, quality of service, system resilience, legal aspects, privacy and standardisation. On these different aspects, whenever possible the comparison between traditional and low-cost approaches is addressed.

For this document to be more than a theoretical guide we have tried to anchor it in reality by illustrating it with twenty case studies that are available in a separate booklet.

Thus, the report should be considered a guide for practitioners to help them making the best decisions when planning to deploy a service based on a low-cost solution. However, this is also a guide for researchers to help them identify and target open issues that need further research.