Continuous Green2 Waves for Surfin Smart Cities

Global warming and climate changes are due to several factors, not least vehicle and transportation emissions. Smart City technologies can provide mechanisms for emission (greenhouse gases, particles) containment that may significantly impact on the environment. This paper proposes a solution, based on an intelligent cruise control system, allowing a vehicle to interact with the Smart City infrastructure facilities for cutting down its emissions on the planned route while saving fuel. The proposed approach aims at implementing a (virtually) continuous green wave for a vehicle lowering its emissions by modulating the speed only considering local traffic congestion and traffic light information provided by the Smart City infrastructure, without actuating on the latter. A green-green (green
²
) wave also reducing the fuel consumption and ensuring a good trade off with travel time. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution, a power train model of a c-segment car traveling on while interacting with Smart City facilities has been implemented and evaluated, providing significant insights.