Traffic Congestion Pricing Methods and Technologies

This paper reviews the methods and technologies for congestion pricing of roads. Congestion tolls can be implemented at scales ranging from individual lanes on single links to national road networks. Tolls can be differentiated by time of day, road type and vehicle characteristics, and even set in real time according to current traffic conditions. Conventional toll booths have largely given way to electronic toll collection technologies. The main technology categories are roadside-only systems employing digital photography, tag and beacon systems that use short-range microwave technology, and in vehicle-only systems based on either satellite or cellular network communications. The best technology choice depends on the application. The rate at which congestion pricing is implemented, and its ultimate scope, will depend on what technology is used and on what other functions and services it can perform. Since congestion pricing calls for the greatest overall degree of toll differentiation, congestion pricing is likely to drive the technology choice.Road pricing; Congestion pricing; Electronic Toll Collection technology

Connected vehicles for internet access: deployment and spectrum policies

Internet traffic from mobile users has been growing sharply. To meet the needs of thoseusers, it is important to expand capacity of networks that provide Internet access in cost effectiveways. This capacity has traditionally been provided by cellular networks. However,expanding the capacity of those networks alone may not be the most cost-effective way to meetthe present and future growth of mobile Internet under some circumstances. In this dissertation,we show that networks of connected vehicles can be an important way to complement thecapacity of cellular networks to provide mobile Internet access under several scenarios.Connected vehicles may soon be widely deployed, forming mesh networks of short-rangeconnections among vehicles and between vehicles and roadside infrastructure. Theseconnections are collectively referred to as vehicle-to-everything, or V2X. Deployment ofconnected vehicles and infrastructure is primarily intended to enhance road safety, and the U.S.Department of Transportation has recently proposed a mandate of V2X devices in vehiclesusing Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology. Other applications are alsoenvisioned that include Internet access in vehicles connecting to roadside infrastructure servingas gateways to the Internet.In this work, we find that V2X-based networks are more cost-effective than cellular toprovide Internet access, in scenarios which DSRC devices are mandated in vehicles to enhanceroad safety. This is true initially for densely populated urban areas, but over time V2X-basednetworks would be cost-effective in less populated areas as well, as long as Internet traffic orpenetration of V2X devices grow as expected.Local and state governments are expected to deploy roadside infrastructure for safetyapplications. If that infrastructure is shared with Internet Service Providers for a fee, then V2XABSTRACT based networks are cost-effective in locations with even lower population densities than thelocations where it is cost-effective to deploy infrastructure for Internet access only. Moreover,the sharing fee could help governments save in infrastructure costs. We find the pricingstrategies that maximize either cost-effectiveness or government savings. We estimate thatgovernments could save about one-fifth of the total cost to deploy safety infrastructurenationwide in the U.S., if fees are set to maximize government savings. Although we find thatthese prices may differ from the pricing strategy that maximizes cost-effectiveness, maximizinggovernment savings results in near-optimal cost-effectiveness.The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has allocated 75 MHz of spectrum to beused exclusively by DSRC devices, and it has been hotly debated whether all or part of thatbandwidth should be shared with unlicensed devices. We find that it is highly efficient to shareany spectrum allocated to V2X communications beyond the portion of that spectrum that isneeded for safety-critical DSRC messages. V2X and unlicensed devices require up to 50% lessbandwidth on shared spectrum to achieve given throughputs, compared to V2X and unlicenseddevices using separate bands. We conclude that the spectrum available for V2X should bemaintained or increased, as long as much of that spectrum is shared with non-V2X devices.Conclusions are derived from an engineering-economic approach, in which part of theassumptions are based on data from a citywide deployment of connected vehicles in Portugal.The data is used in a detailed and realistic packet-level simulation model of V2X-basednetworks used to provide Internet access with DSRC technology. In some scenarios, thesimulation also includes unlicensed devices using Wi-Fi technology. The results of the networksimulation are then fed into engineering-economic models to compare costs of V2X-basednetworks with costs of macrocellular networks to carry given amounts of Internet traffic, and toestimate other measures such as government revenues and spectrum usage. Those measureshelp inform decisions about where and when to deploy V2X-based networks, decisions about whether and how to promote public-private partnerships to deploy V2X infrastructure, anddecisions about sharing spectrum used for V2X communications with non-V2X devices. <br

Traffic Congestion Pricing Methods and Technologies

This paper reviews the methods and technologies for congestion pricing of roads. Congestion tolls can be implemented at scales ranging from individual lanes on single links to national road networks. Tolls can be differentiated by time of day, road type and vehicle characteristics, and even set in real time according to current traffic conditions. Conventional toll booths have largely given way to electronic toll collection technologies. The main technology categories are roadside-only systems employing digital photography, tag and beacon systems that use short-range microwave technology, and in vehicle-only systems based on either satellite or cellular network communications. The best technology choice depends on the application. The rate at which congestion pricing is implemented, and its ultimate scope, will depend on what technology is used and on what other functions and services it can perform. Since congestion pricing calls for the greatest overall degree of toll differentiation, congestion pricing is likely to drive the technology choice

A Survey on platoon-based vehicular cyber-physical systems

Vehicles on the road with some common interests can cooperatively form a platoon-based driving pattern, in which a vehicle follows another one and maintains a small and nearly constant distance to the preceding vehicle. It has been proved that, compared to driving individually, such a platoon-based driving pattern can significantly improve the road capacity and energy efficiency. Moreover, with the emerging vehicular adhoc network (VANET), the performance of platoon in terms of road capacity, safety and energy efficiency, etc., can be further improved. On the other hand, the physical dynamics of vehicles inside the platoon can also affect the performance of VANET. Such a complex system can be considered as a platoon-based vehicular cyber-physical system (VCPS), which has attracted significant attention recently. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey on platoon-based VCPS. We first review the related work of platoon-based VCPS. We then introduce two elementary techniques involved in platoon-based VCPS: the vehicular networking architecture and standards, and traffic dynamics, respectively. We further discuss the fundamental issues in platoon-based VCPS, including vehicle platooning/clustering, cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC), platoon-based vehicular communications, etc., and all of which are characterized by the tight coupled relationship between traffic dynamics and VANET behaviors. Since system verification is critical to VCPS development, we also give an overview of VCPS simulation tools. Finally, we share our view on some open issues that may lead to new research directions

A cost-effective SCTP extension for hybrid vehicular networks

Connected vehicles are promoted with the use of different communication technologies for diverse applications and services. There is an ongoing debate in the research and industry communities whether short range communications based on IEEE 802.11p or cellular based on 3GPP LTE should be used for vehicular communications. In this paper, we propose a mechanism to utilise both short range and cellular communications simultaneously in a cost efficient way while providing the required quality of service to the users. A host connected to multiple networks is referred to as a multi-homed node and Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is an IETF standard which supports multi-homing. We propose an extension to SCTP that takes into account not only path quality but also the cost of using each network. It is shown that the combination of QoS and cost information increases economic benefits for provider and end-users, while providing increased packet throughput