TrafficModeler extensions: A case for rapid VANET simulation using, OMNET++, SUMO, and VEINS

Rapid simulation of Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is increasingly needed. However, this is not easy to achieve because road traffic and network communication simulators are complex and often hybrid frameworks are required. One such a hybrid approach, Vehicles in Network Simulation (Veins), incorporates the widely used Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) and the renowned discrete event simulation environment OMNET++. Additionally, traffic demand modeling is a laborious task that may be prone to errors. Hence, any new contributions or improvements in traffic modeling are important as well as any effort to help the understanding of these complex frameworks. We present some extensions to TrafficModeler, a contributed program to the SUMO distribution. These extensions allow for easy traffic simulation on Veins using maps imported from OpenStreetMaps (OSM). We present guidelines for rapid VANET simulation with the combined use of OSM, TrafficModeler, SUMO, OMNET++, and Veins. We create and present an example to illustrate how to develop a rapid VANET simulation.