Toward cloud-based vehicular networks with efficient resource management

In the era of the Internet of Things, all components in intelligent transportation systems will be connected to improve transport safety, relieve traffic congestion, reduce air pollution, and enhance the comfort of driving. The vision of all vehicles connected poses a significant challenge to the collection and storage of large amounts of traffic-related data. In this article, we propose to integrate cloud computing into vehicular networks such that the vehicles can share computation resources, storage resources, and bandwidth resources. The proposed architecture includes a vehicular cloud, a roadside cloud, and a central cloud. Then we study cloud resource allocation and virtual machine migration for effective resource management in this cloud-based vehicular network. A game-theoretical approach is presented to optimally allocate cloud resources. Virtual machine migration due to vehicle mobility is solved based on a resource reservation scheme.