Optimization of fuel cost and emissions with vehicular networks at traffic intersections

The volatile world economy has greatly affected fuel prices, while pollution and gas emissions are increasing to negatively impact global warming. Vehicular networks offer a promising approach that can be applied in transportation systems to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. One of the interesting applications involves a traffic light signal sending information to approaching vehicles. Based on that information, the vehicle receiving the message adapts its speed to a speed called the recommended speed (S_R), which is the speed that helps the vehicle to reduce fuel consumption and emissions. In this paper, we propose an optimization model with the objective of minimizing fuel consumption and emissions. The speed that can achieve this goal is the optimum S_R. We also propose an efficient heuristic expression to compute near-optimal values of the optimum S_R.