Evaluation of Multihop Relaying for Robust Vehicular Internet Access

In this paper, we study connectivity benefits of using a multihop relaying strategy for improved Internet access in a WiFi-based vehicular environment relative to the common strategy that allows only direct communication between vehicles and access points (APs). We use real AP location data and realistic and detailed vehicular mobility traces for our study. Our results show that multihop relaying strategy leads to substantial gains in connectivity relative to direct access as much as 400%, and that multihop relaying combined with increased communication range provides even greater gains (up to 467%). Further, relay paths with few hops are sufficient to realize most of the gain with multihop relaying.