A Novel VANET-Assisted Traffic Control for Supporting Vehicular Cloud Computing

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) allow for vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communications using wireless local area network technologies. The distinctive features of their candidate applications (e.g., collision warning and local traffic information for drivers), resources (e.g., computational sources), and their ability to collect various data from their environment (e.g., vehicular traffic flow patterns) make VANETs a rich resource for information and resources. In this paper, we propose a new methodology to use VANETs to optimize signal control at traffic intersections as well as to create Vehicular Cloud (VC) computing environments. We theoretically analyze the traffic flow patterns in a given road intersection by using the diffusion approximation model. We calculate the probability of clearing the intersection and demonstrate the effect of the traffic patterns on the optimal choice of the traffic signal control parameters. Then, we employ our theoretical analysis to propose a potential solution to construct VANET-assisted VCs. Experimental results verify the correctness of our analysis.