An event-driven inter-vehicle communication protocol to attenuate vehicular shock waves

In this paper we investigate an event-driven Inter-Vehicle Communication protocol to mitigate shock waves in dense traffic situation. From previous work we know that flooding or frequent beaconing require excessive network resources. To overcome this limitation we focus on an efficient message exchange mechanism requiring as few network resources as possible, while still providing timely and accurate traffic information. We designed Density Redistribution through Intelligent Velocity Estimation (DRIVE), an event-driven Inter-Vehicle Communication protocol that learns about traffic conditions ahead and recommends optimal velocities in order to prevent the formation of vehicular shock waves. We demonstrate that our approach of reacting in case of traffic fluctuations leads to significant improvements in overall traffic flow. Furthermore we show that even a low number of equipped vehicles is sufficient to achieve this target.