Real traffic-data based evaluation of vehicular traffic environment and state-of-the-art with future issues in location-centric data dissemination for VANETs

Extensive investigation has been performed in location-centric or geocast routing protocols for reliable and efficient dissemination of information in Vehicular Adhoc Networks (VANETs). Various location-centric routing protocols have been suggested in literature for road safety ITS applications considering urban and highway traffic environment. This paper characterizes vehicular environments based on real traffic data and investigates the evolution of location-centric data dissemination. The current study is carried out with three main objectives: (i) to analyze the impact of dynamic traffic environment on the design of data dissemination techniques, (ii) to characterize location-centric data dissemination in terms of functional and qualitative behavior of protocols, properties, and strengths and weaknesses, and (iii) to find some future research directions in information dissemination based on location. Vehicular traffic environments have been classified into three categories based on physical characteristics such as speed, inter-vehicular distance, neighborhood stability, traffic volume, etc. Real traffic data is considered to analyze on-road traffic environments based on the measurement of physical parameters and weather conditions. Design issues are identified in incorporating physical parameters and weather conditions into data dissemination. Functional and qualitative characteristics of location-centric techniques are explored considering urban and highway environments. Comparative analysis of location-centric techniques is carried out for both urban and highway environments individually based on some unique and common characteristics of the environments. Finally, some future research directions are identified in the area based on the detailed investigation of traffic environments and location-centric data dissemination techniques.