ADCS: An adaptive data collection scheme in vehicular networks using 3G/LTE

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are special kind of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). The distinctive characteristics of the VANETs include high speed of vehicular nodes and high variability in node density. Collecting data from VANETs is important to monitor, control and manage road traffic. However, efficient collection of the needed data is quite challenging due to vehicles mobility and the tremendous amount of events and data generated. In this paper we focus on vehicle data collection using 3G/LTE. In the first step, we compare proactive and reactive data collection schemes using simulation. The results show that proactive gives the lowest delay and bandwidth usage but the most loss ratio. Interested in optimizing the bandwidth usage, an adaptive data collection scheme will be provided. It is based on the proactive scheme while it uses variable periods depending on the vehicle position and travel time to provide accurate traffic and travel time information to the Traffic Management Center (TMC). Emulation results, using taxi traces in Qatar, shows that our algorithm consumes an acceptable amount of mega bytes (≈ 31MB) per month when the basic reporting period is set to 10s.