A Comparative Study between 802.11p and Mobile WiMAX-based V2I Communication Networks

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have been under development since the 80´s as part of a global strategy for solving many of our modern life transportation problems. These systems enable people to reach their destinations in a safe, efficient, and comfortable way. In order to reach that goal, several radio access technologies (RAT) such as UMTS, WiFi, WiMAX and 5.9 GHz have been proposed for next generation ITS. Yet, the coexistence of these technologies in the vehicles raises the challenge of choosing the most appropriate RAT. In order to address this problem and define optimal rules for the communication technology selection, comparisons on the network performance have to be done. In this paper, we compare two of the most promising infrastructure-based wireless technologies: mobile WiMAX (based on IEEE 802.16e standard) and the 5.9 GHz technology based on the upcoming IEEE 802.11p standard. We investigate, through simulation, the potential and limitations of both technologies as a communication media for vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. The performance of the two systems is evaluated for different vehicle speeds, traffic data rates, and network deployments.