Real Time Acquisition of Traffic Information through V2V, V2R, and V2I Communications

Many vehicles are currently equipped with On-Board Units (OBUs) that are in charge of collecting and processing data for some specific purposes (such as for travel monitoring, as requested by many insurance companies). These devices are connected to the cellular network by means of their Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication interface, and are thus able to transmit and receive information also related to real time traffic, pollution, local events, etc. Of course, as the number of OBU-equipped vehicles increases, the cost of this service increases as well, both in terms of network load and billing. In this chapter, the authors discuss the possibility of taking advantage of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Roadside (V2R) communications to save V2I resources, thus reducing the cellular network burden and, consequently, the service cost.