An Efficient Freeway Traffic Information Monitoring Systems Based on Wireless Sensor Networks and Floating Vehicles

Applications of wireless sensor networks (WSN) in road traffic information collecting are rapidly expanded. Recent studies reveal only using floating vehicle technology as a solution to collect freeway traffic information has the disadvantages of long data packet delivery delay and big delay dithering. The usage of WSN in ITS is expected to be able to overcome the above difficulties. This paper proposes an efficient traffic information collection algorithm based on WSN and floating vehicle technologies. And a simulation for analyzing and evaluating the performances of this algorithm is implemented. The result shows that the proposed algorithm can remarkably improve the network performances in terms of delay and energy, ensure the urgency data to be propagated effectively and prolong the network life span. It is characterized with higher cost performance, flexibility and control efficiency comparing with the current freeway monitoring system based on single floating vehicle technology or single WSN technology.