Red or green: Analyzing the data delivery with traffic lights in vehicular ad hoc networks

The data delivery in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) depends on the mobility of the vehicles (e.g. with carry-and-forward). However, the mobility of the vehicles is not only affected by the nodes themselves, but also by some external means such as the traffic lights. The red light stops the vehicles at the intersection, which will increase the delivery delay of the messages carried by the vehicle with waiting time. On the contrary, this may also increase the opportunities of vehicles moving behind to catch up in forwarding messages. In this paper, we investigate the negative and positive influences of the traffic lights on data delivery in VANETs. We develop an analysis model for evaluating the data delivery among the vehicles that move along a path with multiple traffic lights. Based on the model, vehicles can estimate the reachability of destinations and the data delivery delay. Thus, we propose a transmission control scheme by the given deadline of reachable destinations, in order to improve the data delivery. Our intensive simulations verify the proposed model, and evaluate the influence of the traffic lights on data delivery.