VANET-Enabled Eco-Friendly Road Characteristics-Aware Routing for Vehicular Traffic

The lack of significant breakthroughs in terms of alternative energy sources has caused both fuel consumption and gas emissions to constantly increase. In this context, improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions in the transportation sector is vital, as vehicles are one of the important contributors to air pollution. This paper introduces EcoTrec, a novel eco-friendly routing algorithm for vehicular traffic which considers road characteristics such as surface conditions and gradients, as well as existing traffic conditions to improve the fuel savings of vehicles and reduce gas emissions. EcoTrec makes use of the Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANET) both for collecting data from distributed vehicles and to disseminate information in aid of the routing algorithm. The algorithm calculates the fuel efficiency of various routes and then directs the vehicle to a fuel efficient route, while also avoiding flash crowding. Simulation-based tests showed that by using EcoTrec, fuel emissions were significantly reduced, when compared with existing state-of-the-art vehicular routing algorithms.