Characterizing the role of vehicular cloud computing in road traffic management

Vehicular cloud computing is envisioned to deliver services that provide traffic safety and efficiency to vehicles. Vehicular cloud computing has great potential to change the contemporary vehicular communication paradigm. Explicitly, the underutilized resources of vehicles can be shared with other vehicles to manage traffic during congestion. These resources include but are not limited to storage, computing power, and Internet connectivity. This study reviews current traffic management systems to analyze the role and significance of vehicular cloud computing in road traffic management. First, an abstraction of the vehicular cloud infrastructure in an urban scenario is presented to explore the vehicular cloud computing process. A taxonomy of vehicular clouds that defines the cloud formation, integration types, and services is presented. A taxonomy of vehicular cloud services is also provided to explore the object types involved and their positions within the vehicular cloud. A comparison of the current state-of-the-art traffic management systems is performed in terms of parameters, such as vehicular ad hoc network infrastructure, Internet dependency, cloud management, scalability, traffic flow control, and emerging services. Potential future challenges and emerging technologies, such as the Internet of vehicles and its incorporation in traffic congestion control, are also discussed. Vehicular cloud computing is envisioned to have a substantial role in the development of smart traffic management solutions and in emerging Internet of vehicles. © The Author(s) 2017

Characterizing the role of vehicular cloud computing in road traffic management

Vehicular cloud computing is envisioned to deliver services that provide traffic safety and efficiency to vehicles. Vehicular cloud computing has great potential to change the contemporary vehicular communication paradigm. Explicitly, the underutilized resources of vehicles can be shared with other vehicles to manage traffic during congestion. These resources include but are not limited to storage, computing power, and Internet connectivity. This study reviews current traffic management systems to analyze the role and significance of vehicular cloud computing in road traffic management. First, an abstraction of the vehicular cloud infrastructure in an urban scenario is presented to explore the vehicular cloud computing process. A taxonomy of vehicular clouds that defines the cloud formation, integration types, and services is presented. A taxonomy of vehicular cloud services is also provided to explore the object types involved and their positions within the vehicular cloud. A comparison of the current state-of-the-art traffic management systems is performed in terms of parameters, such as vehicular ad hoc network infrastructure, Internet dependency, cloud management, scalability, traffic flow control, and emerging services. Potential future challenges and emerging technologies, such as the Internet of vehicles and its incorporation in traffic congestion control, are also discussed. Vehicular cloud computing is envisioned to have a substantial role in the development of smart traffic management solutions and in emerging Internet of vehicles

Potential of Augmented Reality for Intelligent Transportation Systems

Rapid advances in wireless communication technologies coupled with ongoing massive development in vehicular networking standards and innovations in computing, sensing, and analytics have paved the way for intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to develop rapidly in the near future. ITS provides a complete solution for the efficient and intelligent management of real-time traffic, wherein sensory data is collected from within the vehicles (i.e., via their onboard units) as well as data exchanged between the vehicles, between the vehicles and their supporting roadside infrastructure/network, among the vehicles and vulnerable pedestrians, subsequently paving the way for the realization of the futuristic Internet of Vehicles. The traditional intent of an ITS system is to detect, monitor, control, and subsequently reduce traffic congestion based on a real-time analysis of the data pertinent to certain patterns of the road traffic, including traffic density at a geographical area of interest, precise velocity of vehicles, current and predicted travelling trajectories and times, etc. However, merely relying on an ITS framework is not an optimal solution. In case of dense traffic environments, where communication broadcasts from hundreds of thousands of vehicles could potentially choke the entire network (and so could lead to fatal accidents in the case of autonomous vehicles that depend on reliable communications for their operational safety), a fall back to the traditional decentralized vehicular ad hoc network (VANET) approach becomes necessary. It is therefore of critical importance to enhance the situational awareness of vehicular drivers so as to enable them to make quick but well-founded manual decisions in such safety-critical situations.Comment: In: Lee N. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games. Springer, Cham, 201

Issues Related to the Emergence of the Information Superhighway and California Societal Changes, IISTPS Report 96-4

The Norman Y. Mineta International Institute for Surface Transportation Policy Studies (IISTPS) at San José State University (SJSU) conducted this project to review the continuing development of the Internet and the Information Superhighway. Emphasis was placed on an examination of the impact on commuting and working patterns in California, and an analysis of how public transportation agencies, including Caltrans, might take advantage of the new communications technologies. The document reviews the technology underlying the current Internet “structure” and examines anticipated developments. It is important to note that much of the research for this limited-scope project was conducted during 1995, and the topic is so rapidly evolving that some information is almost automatically “dated.” The report also examines how transportation agencies are basically similar in structure and function to other business entities, and how they can continue to utilize the emerging technologies to improve internal and external communications. As part of a detailed discussion of specific transportation agency functions, it is noted that the concept of a “Roundtable Forum,” growing out of developments in Concurrent Engineering, can provide an opportunity for representatives from multiple jurisdictions to utilize the Internet for more coordinated decision-making. The report also included an extensive analysis of demographic trends in California in recent years, such as commute and recreational activities, and identifies how the emerging technologies may impact future changes

VANET Applications: Hot Use Cases

Current challenges of car manufacturers are to make roads safe, to achieve free flowing traffic with few congestions, and to reduce pollution by an effective fuel use. To reach these goals, many improvements are performed in-car, but more and more approaches rely on connected cars with communication capabilities between cars, with an infrastructure, or with IoT devices. Monitoring and coordinating vehicles allow then to compute intelligent ways of transportation. Connected cars have introduced a new way of thinking cars - not only as a mean for a driver to go from A to B, but as smart cars - a user extension like the smartphone today. In this report, we introduce concepts and specific vocabulary in order to classify current innovations or ideas on the emerging topic of smart car. We present a graphical categorization showing this evolution in function of the societal evolution. Different perspectives are adopted: a vehicle-centric view, a vehicle-network view, and a user-centric view; described by simple and complex use-cases and illustrated by a list of emerging and current projects from the academic and industrial worlds. We identified an empty space in innovation between the user and his car: paradoxically even if they are both in interaction, they are separated through different application uses. Future challenge is to interlace social concerns of the user within an intelligent and efficient driving

ITS implementation plan for the Gold Coast area

ITS needs to be used to reinforce the planned major changes to the road functional hierarchy in the District, namely: • the use of Southport-Burleigh Rd. (SBR) as the major regional corridor; • the removal of through traffic from the GCH; • the use of Oxley Dr./Olsen Av./Ross St./NBR as another major north-south by-pass; • the use of Smith St.; NSR/Queen St.; NBR and Reedy Creek Rd. – West Burleigh Road as the major east-west access corridors. There is a need to integrate the proposed ITS measures into the current related plans for the Pacific Motorway and into the overall traffic control strategies for the area as a whole. In addition, the staging of the proposed plan needs to take into account the planned DMR capital Works Program. An index representing the degree of priority to be attached to each network link was developed to assist in the phased implementation of ITS technologies over the next 5 years. 'ITS Index' is made up of five variables, namely: • Accident rate factor • AADT • Volume/Capacity ratio • Delay • % Commercial Vehicles The main components of the ITS plan are shown diagrammatically in Figure 1. The latter assumes that the high level of ITS implementation on the Pacific Motorway will be extended in time to the remainder of that Highway. To assist in the implementation of the road hierarchy system, a new static signage plan should be implemented. This plan needs to reinforce the changes by clearly assigning single road names to corridors and by placing new signs at appropriate locations. Capturing Traffic Data The following corridors should be equipped with automatic traffic monitoring capability in priority order: High Priority ? SBR corridor from Smith St. connection to Reedy Creek Rd. ? Smith St. from Pacific Highway to High St. ? GCH from Pacific Highway to North St. Medium Priority ? Nerang-Broadbeach Rd/Ross St. to Nerang-Southport Rd. ? Nerang-Southport Rd from Pacific Highway to SBR ? Nerang-Broadbeach Rd from Pacific Highway to SBR The Smith St. link from the Pacific Motorway to Olsen Ave. should be considered as a freeway for monitoring purposes. The GCH along the coastal strip needs to be treated as a local distributor rather than as the major corridor. As a result, the future traffic surveillance priority should be low. At least one permanent environmental (vehicle emissions) monitoring station should be set up as part of the ITS plan. The most appropriate site for such a station would seem to be on the SBR corridor at the vicinity of Hooker Blv. intersection. Pacific Highway The Pacific Motorway project will set the benchmark for freeway incident detection and traffic management in the State. The high level of ITS implementation on the Motorway section will create a significant gap in performance and expectation, relative to the remainder of the Highway. It is recommended that the southern sections of the Pacific Highway be equipped to the equivalent level of traffic data collection and surveillance as the newly upgraded Motorway section, under a staged program. Travel Time Savings The travel time benefits of the full implementation of ITS over the network are likely to be of the order of at least 5 percent of vehicle-hours travelled on the affected links. At a discount rate of 6 percent, the total present value of the gross travel time benefit over 10 years is of the order of $200 million

Integration of driver support functions: the driver's point of view

Integration of driver support functions is a key issue in the development of in-vehicle systems that assist the driver with the driving task. This paper discusses a user needs survey that provides more insight into this issue from the perspective of the driver. Car drivers are asked to indicate their needs for driver assistance during certain driving tasks (e.g. congestion driving) and circumstances (e.g. reduced visibility). From this, consequences for the integration of functions can be deduced with respect to technology, HMI and functional operation. Preliminary results of a pilot test of the user needs survey are highlighted in this paper. These results indicate starting points for integrated driver assistance, such as the adaptability of systems based on personal needs for support, and the functional integration of driver support functions, for instance with respect to inter-vehicle communication

SymbioCity: Smart Cities for Smarter Networks

The "Smart City" (SC) concept revolves around the idea of embodying cutting-edge ICT solutions in the very fabric of future cities, in order to offer new and better services to citizens while lowering the city management costs, both in monetary, social, and environmental terms. In this framework, communication technologies are perceived as subservient to the SC services, providing the means to collect and process the data needed to make the services function. In this paper, we propose a new vision in which technology and SC services are designed to take advantage of each other in a symbiotic manner. According to this new paradigm, which we call "SymbioCity", SC services can indeed be exploited to improve the performance of the same communication systems that provide them with data. Suggestive examples of this symbiotic ecosystem are discussed in the paper. The dissertation is then substantiated in a proof-of-concept case study, where we show how the traffic monitoring service provided by the London Smart City initiative can be used to predict the density of users in a certain zone and optimize the cellular service in that area.Comment: 14 pages, submitted for publication to ETT Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologie

Federated Robust Embedded Systems: Concepts and Challenges

The development within the area of embedded systems (ESs) is moving rapidly, not least due to falling costs of computation and communication equipment. It is believed that increased communication opportunities will lead to the future ESs no longer being parts of isolated products, but rather parts of larger communities or federations of ESs, within which information is exchanged for the benefit of all participants. This vision is asserted by a number of interrelated research topics, such as the internet of things, cyber-physical systems, systems of systems, and multi-agent systems. In this work, the focus is primarily on ESs, with their specific real-time and safety requirements. While the vision of interconnected ESs is quite promising, it also brings great challenges to the development of future systems in an efficient, safe, and reliable way. In this work, a pre-study has been carried out in order to gain a better understanding about common concepts and challenges that naturally arise in federations of ESs. The work was organized around a series of workshops, with contributions from both academic participants and industrial partners with a strong experience in ES development. During the workshops, a portfolio of possible ES federation scenarios was collected, and a number of application examples were discussed more thoroughly on different abstraction levels, starting from screening the nature of interactions on the federation level and proceeding down to the implementation details within each ES. These discussions led to a better understanding of what can be expected in the future federated ESs. In this report, the discussed applications are summarized, together with their characteristics, challenges, and necessary solution elements, providing a ground for the future research within the area of communicating ESs

Synergizing Roadway Infrastructure Investment with Digital Infrastructure for Infrastructure-Based Connected Vehicle Applications: Review of Current Status and Future Directions

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The safety, mobility, environmental and economic benefits of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are potentially dramatic. However, realization of these benefits largely hinges on the timely upgrading of the existing transportation system. CAVs must be enabled to send and receive data to and from other vehicles and drivers (V2V communication) and to and from infrastructure (V2I communication). Further, infrastructure and the transportation agencies that manage it must be able to collect, process, distribute and archive these data quickly, reliably, and securely. This paper focuses on current digital roadway infrastructure initiatives and highlights the importance of including digital infrastructure investment alongside more traditional infrastructure investment to keep up with the auto industry's push towards this real time communication and data processing capability. Agencies responsible for transportation infrastructure construction and management must collaborate, establishing national and international platforms to guide the planning, deployment and management of digital infrastructure in their jurisdictions. This will help create standardized interoperable national and international systems so that CAV technology is not deployed in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner