Abstract
An intelligent city, also known as smart city or cognitive city, is a new vision for urban development to integrate the various sectors and functions of the society through the use of internet of things and sensor-based technologies. The main objective is to seamlessly integrate and efficiently manage a city's resources such as transportation, healthcare, commerce, manufacturing, education, utilities, law enforcement, as well as city's various e-government information systems. The aim is to improve the quality of life of citizens and efficiency of city's services and processes, through the use of latest distributed technologies. In this chapter, the authors discuss the connected vehicles vision, as a core element of the internet of vehicles paradigm, as part of the intelligent transportation system (ITS). In doing so, they discuss the underlying concepts, technologies, types of vehicular connectivity, and mobile and vehicular ad hoc networks (i.e., MANET and VANET).
TopIntroduction
An Intelligent City, also known as Smart City or Cognitive City, is a new vision for urban development to integrate the various sectors and functions of the society through the use of Internet of Things (IoT) and sensor-based technologies. The objective is to integrate and manage a city’s resources and relevant processes such as transportation, healthcare, commerce, education, utilities, law enforcement, as well as city’s various e-government information systems. The ultimate aim is to improve the quality of life of citizens and efficiency of city’s services and processes, ensuring that citizens’ day to day needs are met and their quality of life and working environments are improved.
Relevant computing and IoT-based technologies, social media offerings, distributed computing paradigms, mobile technology, communication protocols, and device connectivity frameworks are already well established and understood. These technologies and smart systems are readily available to support the following, and more:
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To empower the citizens to provision and access the e-services provided by the social and commercial sectors of the intelligent cities
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To allow city managers to interact directly with the citizens and to effectively monitor the digital and smart environments of the modern cities
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To develop smart environments where citizens can enjoy improved quality of life working and living in digital intelligent cities.
In this chapter, the focus is on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) which is an essential component of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) vision. The main objectives of ITS are as follows:
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to provide digitally based services and products relating to different modes of transport (e.g. cars, buses, etc.) and traffic management (e.g. planning, control, management, and movement of vehicles)
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to enable road users (e.g. drivers and pedestrians) to be better informed (e.g. regarding road conditions, road incidents ahead, etc.) and make their journeys safer and more coordinated, to allow them to experience 'smarter' use of transport networks (e.g. infrastructures that allow safe movement of connected and autonomous vehicles).
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to improve the quality of city transportation in a number of ways e.g. increased efficiency of road transport, better traffic management, more efficient mobility, less road incidents, safer driving experience, etc.
This chapter is organised as follows. In the following three sections, we introduce the concepts and technologies relating to the Intelligent Cities (IC) vision. In the next two sections, we discuss Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) as an essential component of IC, and explore the Connected Vehicles paradigm as an important aspect of the ITS. Following this, we discuss in detail the technologies that enable the Connected Cars vision, as well as, the inherent issues and limitations of the relevant technological systems.
TopIntelligent City: Characteristics And Dimensions
An Intelligent City (IC), sometimes also called Digital City or Smart City, refers to an intelligent physical environment that embeds information and communication technologies including sensor based inter connected systems to develop interactive spaces and smart objects therein, to bring computation speed and accuracy into the physical world (Steventon and Wright, 2006). It is an attractive and highly useful application of the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Smart Roads: These are roads and streets where sensory systems embedded in roadside units (e.g., traffic lights, lane markings, road sign boards, etc.) inform and warn vehicles of road conditions (e.g., incidents ahead), and provide information regarding traffic management and flow.
Intelligent City: This refers to a new vision for urban development, using IoT based technologies and tools, to integrate and effectively manage a city’s resources and processes (e.g., transportation, healthcare, commerce, utilities, city’s e-government functions), to improve the quality of life of citizens.
Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET): It is a special form of MANET formed specifically by vehicles equipped with IoT-based smart devices, so that vehicles can share information with each other for their incident free travel. These networks act as infrastructure for intelligent transportation systems (ITS).
V2I Communication: This refers to IoV communication between vehicles on the roads and the ITS systems (traffic lights, speed cameras, lane markings, parking meters, etc.) in the environment, to provide advanced information on road situations and available facilities, to the vehicles and occupants.
5G Network: This is next-generation of cellular mobile communications standard, scheduled to follow 4G networks, capable of vastly higher data rates, lower latency, higher system capacity, massive device connectivity, and with energy saving features.
V2C Communication: This refers to communication between vehicles on the roads and the cloud computing environment for storage and distributed processing of traffic related information for vehicles to take decisions in real time regarding road conditions and situations.
Mobile Ad-hoc NETwork (MANET): This is a type of ad hoc network that can change locations and configure itself on the fly. It is used for communication between vehicles and roadside smart devices and intelligent systems. This network is also known as Wireless Ad Hoc Network (WANET)
V2V Communication: This refers to communication between vehicles on the roads (cars, buses, lorries, etc.), connected via the IoV and IoT based technologies, in relation to their location, speed, direction, and status etc. to develop 360-degree awareness of each other’s presence for safer travel.
Smart Manufacturing: An important component of Industrial IoT, this refers to the use of computer-integrated manufacturing processes and tools resulting in better adoptability, rapid design changes and intelligent automation of industrial level manufacturing systems.
Vehicle Telematics: It is a method of monitoring the status of a vehicle, in terms of speed and location etc. On-board diagnostics systems together with GPS systems are used to monitoring status related parameters, including how the car is behaving internally.
V2X Communication: This refers to vehicle-to-anything communication, where ‘everything’ refers to vehicles, roadside units, cloud environment, as well as smart objects (e.g., mobile phones, handheld devices) in the environment. It is an umbrella term for a variety of IOV connectivity platforms such as V2V, V2I, V2P, etc.
V2P Communication: This refers to IoV communication between vehicles on the roads and pedestrians in the vicinity, to increase pedestrian and road users’ safety (using pedestrian detection system) and to avoid accidents involving road users (e.g., cyclists near a blind corner).
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS): This is where technology-based services, including sensing, analysis and control, relating to management of vehicles on the roads (e.g. buses, cars, lorries, etc.) to enable safe and smarter use of transport networks for more comfortable driving and travel experience.
Smart Homes: These are smart living spaces where status of heating, lighting and security, etc. can be remotely monitored and controlled (e.g., switching on/off lights/heating, and monitoring of security status, etc.) using IoT and sensor based smart objects (e.g., mobile phones).
Internet of Vehicles (IoV): This is a highly useful application of the IoT paradigm, where the moving network of IoT enabled vehicles (cars, buses, etc.) share information collected via the smart devices and sensors within and outside of the vehicles to help in decision making.