Connected Vehicles Make Transportation Faster, Safer, Smarter, and Greener!

SINCE the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a mandate for car makers to enable connected vehicle (CV) technology for a safe driving experience in 2012, tremendous interest in CVs has reemerged. CVs refer to the enabling technologies to connect vehicles inside and outside their operational environments to improve safe driving, congestion control, air pollution reduction, energy savings, etc. Although research activities on CVs have attracted intensive attention under the umbrella of vehicle ad hoc networks and intelligent transportation systems (ITSs), most research outcomes are still limited to theory and are far from practicality. With the mandate, together with various kinds of sensing and learning capabilities, CVs can potentially form reliable and sustainable intelligence harvesting networks to collect various kinds of information related to driving conditions and road traffic situations, conduct effective data analysis, and then take proactive actions for a safe driving experience. Hence, CVs hold high promise for future ITSs that impact people´s lives.