An analytical model to characterize the spatiotemporal propagation of information under vehicle-to-vehicle communications

Modeling the spatiotemporal propagation characteristics of information under vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications is critical for developing information-enabled applications to improve traffic safety and mobility. Existing analytical approaches assume instantaneous information flow propagation to simplify the communication constraints arising from the traffic flow dynamics. Consequently, information flow propagation characteristics such as the information flow propagation wave have not been analyzed. They are necessary to describe the interactions with the underlying traffic flow dynamics. An analytical model, which integrates an epidemic model with a traffic flow model, is developed to account for such interactions. The proposed model is able to capture the dynamics of information flow and traffic flow in an integrated formulation that circumvents key analytical and numerical challenges. Results from computational experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and its ability to describe the dynamic characteristics of information flow propagation along with the traffic flow dynamics.