Fog-Assisted Cooperative Protocol for Traffic Message Transmission in Vehicular Networks

Traffic information exchange between vehicles and city-wide traffic command center will enable various traffic management applications in future smart cities. These applications require a secure and reliable communication framework that ensures real-time data exchange. In this paper, we propose a Fog-Assisted Cooperative Protocol (FACP) that efficiently transmits uplink and downlink traffic messages with the help of fog Road Side Units (RSUs). FACP divides the road into clusters and computes cluster head vehicles to facilitate transmission between vehicles and traffic command center or fog RSUs. Using a combination of IEEE 802.11p and C-V2X wireless technologies, FACP minimizes the time required by a vehicle to retrieve traffic information. Furthermore, FACP also utilizes cooperative transmissions to improve the reliability of traffic messages. Simulations results show that FACP improves the reception rate and end-to-end delay of traffic messages.