A Virtual Infrastructure Model Based on Data Reuse to Support Intelligent Transportation System Applications

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have significantly improved transportation quality by using applications capable of monitoring, managing, and improving the transportation system. However, the large number of devices required to provide data to ITS applications has become a challenge in recent years, particularly the high installation and maintenance costs made broad deployment impracticable. Despite several advances in smart city research and the internet of things (IoT), research on ITS is still in the early stages. In this sense, to improve data collection and maintenance strategies for ITS systems, this article proposes a virtual infrastructure model based on data reuse, mainly autonomous vehicle (AV) data, to support ITS applications. It presents design choices and challenges for deploying a virtual infrastructure based on Beyond 5G (B5G) communication and data reuse, followed by developing a proof of concept of an AV data acquisition system evaluated through simulation. The results show that the extra data collection module results in a 1.1% increase in total memory usage with direct sensor collection and a 2.6% increase with application performance management (APM) data collection on the reference hardware. This data reuse setup can significantly improve ITS data challenges with minimal impact on current technology stack on the Autonomous vehicles currently in circulation.