RDS was developed as a result of the far sighted preparatory studies undertaken
within EBU Technical Groups over 20 years ago. The system was designed to
fulfill the requirements of all European countries and it subsequently became a
European standard under the umbrella of CENELEC. In many countries RDS
services were rapidly introduced with the aim of generally improving FM radio
and especially mobile reception. New data services, in particular for traffic and
travel information, were added and are now being introduced. RDS has been
further developed to permit migration to Digital Radio which has even more
powerful features built upon that experience already gained.