Abstract
As road traffic conditions worsen due to the constantly increasing number of cars, traffic management systems are struggling to provide a suitable environment, by gathering all the relevant information from the road network. However, in most cases these are obtained via traffic detectors placed near road junctions, thus providing no information on the conditions in between. A large-scale sensor network using detectors on the majority of vehicles would certainly be capable of providing useful data, but has two major impediments: the equipment installed on the vehicles should be cheap enough (assuming the willingness of private car owners to be a part of the network) and be capable of transferring the required amount of data in due time, as the vehicle passes by the road side unit that acts as interface with the traffic management system. These restrictions reduce the number of technologies that can be used. In this article a series of comprehensive tests have been performed to evaluate the Bluetooth and ZigBee protocols for this purpose from many points of view: handshake time, static and dynamic data transfer (in laboratory conditions and in real traffic conditions). An assessment of the environmental conditions (during tests and probable to be encountered in real conditions) was also provided.
Highlights
The Internet of Things is a modern concept that allows the connection to the Internet and, remote access and control for many devices that were initially meant to be used locally
Communication is the key element in the progress of future applications. Even if it is about the data exchange between a vehicle and a road side unit (RSU) with the purpose of informing the driver about the conditions on the road ahead, the data collected by the vehicle along the path that is downloaded into the RSU, or even collaborative vehicle driving, the communication system is the backbone of each development
The approach in this paper starts from the disadvantages presented above, in the development of a large sensor network able to collect meaningful data to be used in traffic management, the focus should be on the costs, but having in mind the communication reliability
Summary
The Internet of Things is a modern concept that allows the connection to the Internet and, remote access and control for many devices that were initially meant to be used locally This concept, that basically represents the possibility of having a network of different types of devices that are able to work together in an integrated system, may be transferred to the road transport field, supporting the development of new applications, such as dynamic information gathering, or even an integrated concept of Internet of Vehicles. The approach in this paper starts from the disadvantages presented above, in the development of a large sensor network able to collect meaningful data to be used in traffic management, the focus should be on the costs, but having in mind the communication reliability.
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