Traffic Flow Control in Vehicular Multi-Hop Networks With Data Caching and Infrastructure Support

This work studies the user equilibrium (UE) state and the system optimal (SO) state in vehicular communication networks that support both V2V and V2I communication. Each user in this network is assumed to make route choice that optimizes a utility function that involves the traditional travel cost and the data communication utility. The overall social cost is minimized when the network is in the SO state. However, the rational and selfish user behavior brings the network to the UE state. It is well known that, in general, the UE state does not necessarily coincide with the SO state. In this paper, we leverage the data communication aspect of the decision making to influence the users' route choices, driving the UE state to the SO state. We provide a guideline for the system operator on how to drive the network towards the SO state using the V2I bandwidth allocation scheme developed in the paper. The model and the proposed algorithm are validated using Veins simulation under IEEE 802.11p protocol. In the simulation, we also show that the system cost can be lowered compared with the UE state if the bandwidth allocation is close to the optimal solution under the proposed algorithm.