http://vidhoon.wordpress.com/2010/09/06 ... l-writeup/
[quote]Research Intern at University of Victoria,Canada : Non-Technical Writeup
Over 600 million passenger cars travel on the streets and roads around the world today.The average time spent by a person driving or riding is 2 hours and 52 minutes per day.The rate of growth of the passenger car population is projected between 3–6 percent in the coming years. All these statistics intensified the need for the development of Vehicular Networks, a means of communication and information sharing between the vehicles on the move.
When calculated, the significance of the data that can be gathered while a person is on the move is quite astonishing. And the effect of sharing this amount of data among the other vehicles around is mind blowing! The tides created by these effects push us towards the shore of inter-vehicular communications.
The very thought of sharing information on the move opens the door to a large pool of applications based on safety and business needs. You want to escape a traffic jam? You want to enjoy high-speed Internet on the move? You want to find a parking space just like that? If these questions erupt butterflies within your stomach then I have something to feed those butterflies. Those days are not far away! Let us examine different kinds of applications that arise from the roots of Vehicular Networks first.
One fine day, I am going on a highway and all of the sudden a car on opposite lane looses control and overturns. It would be helpful if I could call an ambulance while I concentrate on driving. It would be even better if I could tell the other vehicles to slow down in order to avoid a pile-up crash. This particular case gives rise to emergency message dissemination
applications.
Another fine day, I am going by car to airport in order to catch a flight for Toronto. But due to the heavy traffic it seems that I would likely miss my scheduled flight. It would be great if I was able to reschedule my trip by connecting to the Internet on the move. It would be very helpful if I get to know the density of the traffic along each possible route to my destination, so that we can choose the best path. This scenario leads to the category of smart traveler services and traffic information services.
Now having a clear idea of the scope and the diverse range of applications that branch out of Vehicular Networks, let us move onto some other important aspects of this promising field of sciences and engineering. Vehiclular Netowrks are rapidly dynamic in nature.
Hence we bring them under the ad-hoc class and label them as “Vehicular Ad-hoc Networksâ€