A decentralized vehicle re-routing approach using vehicular ad-hoc networks

Sustainable economic growth and appreciable living standard in a country heavily depend on the reliability and efficiency of its transport infrastructure. One possible way of enhancing the travel experience of commuters is by using intelligent applications in vehicles that communicate through wireless networks. Envisioning these applications to new heights can be achieved with the recent advancements in wireless communication technologies. Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) are a special type of mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) which can be used to define intelligent interfaces for vehicle to vehicle (V2V) or vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communication requirements. In this paper, we propose a vehicle rerouting approach for accident situations through VANET scenario simulations. For this research, we have used OMNeT++ network simulator to simulate the mobile network involved and SUMO microscopic traffic simulator to simulate vehicular movements in parallel and Veins framework as a bridging interface between OMNeT++ and SUMO. We have validated our solution with two heterogeneous metropolitan areas with significant structural dissimilarities located in the cities of Kandy and Colombo in Sri Lanka. Our solution achieved lesser values for waiting time and the trip duration of vehicles and qualitatively improving the traffic flow when comparing against the absence of rerouting component.