Chapter 1 Introduction: intelligent vehicular communications

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CHAPTER
Intelligent Vehicular Networks and Communications
 
Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION: 
INTELLIGENT VEHICULAR 
COMMUNICATIONS
1.1
BACKGROUND OF TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS
The World Health Organization (WHO) statistics depict that annually road accidents cause approxi-
mately 1.2 million deaths worldwide, one fourth of all deaths caused by injury. In addition about 
50 million people are injured in traffic accidents annually. This scenario calls for immediate steps to 
revamp the present vehicular safety services. The main motivation behind the vehicular communica-
tion systems is to promote safety and also eliminate the excessive costs of traffic collisions. Although 
the main advantage of vehicular networks is safety, there are several other benefits such as avoid-
ing congestion, finding the most optimal path by processing real-time data, vehicle behavior analysis, 
examining road capacity, pedestrian flow rate analysis, and so forth. The US regulator officials are 
planning for the technology to become mandatory by 2017 for intelligent transportation system (ITS). 
Allowing cooperation among vehicular network entities, which require a persistent, stable, and reliable 
underlying communications service. Currently, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 
has allocated 75 MHz and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) allocated 
30 MHz of spectrum in 5.9 GHz band for the operation of ITS services.
The vehicular network research deals with a multifaceted real-world system, the transportation 
system. The research implications deal with theoretical values and practical methods that can be imple-
mented and applied in different aspects, including planning, design, construction, operations, safety, 
and so forth. One unique characteristic of a vehicular network is that it advances intensively with 
scientific innovations. In order to change the elementary characteristics of the vehicular networks the 
technological achievement provides an innovative path for observing, monitoring, and managing trans-
portation systems. One of the earliest and most representative transportation models is the fundamental 
diagram of relationships among speed, flow, and density by Greenshields in the year 1935. From that 
time, vehicular networks investigation has advanced significantly with respect to practically all features 
of the transportation system, particularly with the growth of ITS technologies since the 1990s.
Road safety has been a significant concern in the world over the past few decades because millions 
of people die or are injured in car accidents every year. Current statistics show that road traffic acci-
dents in the Member States of the European Union annually claim about 39,000 lives and leave more 
than 1.7 million people injured, representing an estimated cost of 160 billion euros. In 1900 there were 
240 km of surface road in the United States, and this total had increased to 6,400,000 by the year 2000, 
with effectively 100% of the US population having almost instant access to paved roadways. The growth 
(and decline) of transportation networks perceptibly disturbs the communal and financial happenings 
that a region can support, yet the dynamics of how such growth occurs is one of the least understood 
areas in transportation. This lack of understanding in recent times can be seen in the long-range planning 
and development of urban and rural transportation projects. If one looks at the difficulty and governance 
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