为了帮助水资源管理者考虑自动抄表（AMR）技术，AWWA研究基金会资助了水行业AMR的研究。这项研究的一个关键部分是对美国和加拿大水务管理人员的调查。调查的目的是评估人们对自动抄表的兴趣程度。大多数受访者表示对AMR感兴趣。正如预期的那样，拥有高比例室内电表组的公用事业公司以及大型公用事业公司的兴趣很高。总体而言，公用事业公司对AMR感兴趣的原因在不同群体中是相同的。 最重要的因素包括提高抄表和计费效率的愿望，以及改善客户服务的愿望。最大的障碍是AMR的成本以及与系统实施相关的问题。

To aid water utility managers' consideration of automatic meter reading (AMR) technology, the AWWA Research Foundation has funded a study on AMR in the water industry. A key part of this research was a survey of water utility managers in the United States and Canada. The objective of the survey was to assess the level of interest in automatic meter reading. A majority of the respondents expressed interest in AMR. As expected interest was high among utilities that had a high proportion of indoor meter sets, and among larger utilities. Overall, the reasons utilities were interested in AMR was the same across groups. The most important factors included a desire to increase efficiency of meter reading and billing, and a desire to improve customer service. The biggest impediments were the cost of AMR and the problems associated with system implementation.