Extensive GPRS Latency Characterization in Uplink Packet Transmission from Moving Vehicles

The GPRS (general packet radio service) broad availability is driving a widespread development of mobile telemetry systems for fleet management, supply chain management and dangerous goods monitoring applications. In this paper we present the results of extensive measurements of the GPRS network-layer uplink latency performed over a four-month period from about fifty road trucks using telemetry service, providing an uplink latency characterization in a moving vehicle environment. The results show the relationship between vehicle speed and latency. Furthermore, the performances of the stop-and-wait in a moving vehicle environment are evaluated in order to design a variant of such a protocol based on a vehicle speed-aware retransmission timeout.