Time evolution of the importance of nodes in VANET based on temporal networks

As the key nodes in the vehicle ad hoc network (VANET) play a vital role in the dissemination of information, evaluating the importance of nodes is necessary. In this paper, based on Intelligent Driver Model with Lane Changes (IDM-LC), the VanetMobiSim is used to study the time evolution of important nodes for VANET. Firstly, the temporal network model of VANET is built. Then, we analyze the evolution of important nodes in VANET based on four temporal metrics. The results show that the communication radius of VANET does not affect the ranking of important nodes. The evolution of important nodes is similar under temporal degree, entropy degree centrality and temporal Bonacich (a, β)-centrality, and the ranking of important node is basically stable. We also show that in temporal closeness centrality case the key nodes in VANET that are consistently important over time, this result shows that the temporal closeness centrality cannot be used to evaluate the importance of nodes in VANET. These results will help us choose methods appropriate to evaluation the nodes importance in VANET.