There is a continuous need to design and develop wireless technologies to meet the increasing demands for high-speed wireless data transfer to incorporate advanced intelligent transport systems. Different wireless technologies are continuously evolving including short-range and long-range (WiMAX, LTE, and 5G) cellular standards. These emerging technologies can considerably enhance the operational performance of communication between vehicles and road-side infrastructure. This paper analyzes the performance of cellular-based long-term evolution (LTE) and 5GTN (5G Test Network) in pilot field measurements (i.e., vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure) when delivering road weather and traffic information in real-time environments. Measurements were conducted on a test track operated and owned by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Finland. The results showed that 5GTN outperformed LTE when exchanging road weather and traffic data messages in V2V and V2I scenarios. This comparison was made by mainly considering bandwidth, throughput, packet loss, and latency. The safety critical messages were transmitted at a transmission frequency of 10 Hz. The performance of both compared technologies (i.e., LTE and 5GTN) fulfilled the minimum requirements of the ITS-Assisted Road weather and traffic platform to offer reliable communication for enhanced road traffic safety. The field measurement results also illustrate the advantage of cellular networks (LTE and 5GTN) with a clear potential to use it heterogeneously in future field tests with short-range protocols, e.g., IEEE 802.11p.

In recent years, researchers and scientists are continuously striving to design and develop advance wireless technologies for vehicular communication. Advanced short‐range (IEEE‐802.11p/ITS‐G5) and long‐range (LTE, LTE‐A, and 5G) technologies are indispensable for Vehicular Ad hoc networking (VANETs). Meanwhile, exploiting technologies for cooperative awareness of connected vehicles is important for seamless network connectivity in hazardous situations. For seamless network availability, there is a need to integrate short‐range and long‐range technologies together. In this article, we design a pilot platform based on IEEE‐802.11p, LTE and 5G test network (5GTN) utilizing road traffic and weather information. The use of real‐time and accurate road traffic and weather information together with road condition information is crucial to enhance road safety. To deliver updated road weather and traffic information, we have used a combination of networks. In this article, a comparison of vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) pilot scenarios was carried out considering the mentioned networks. The used IEEE 802.11p acts as a primary vehicular communication channel, assisted by other cellular‐based LTE and 5G networks. Network performance was analyzed by considering latency, packet loss, and throughput in V2V and V2I scenarios. These pilot measurements revealed that the state‐of‐the‐art 5G test network performs better in contrast of IEEE‐802.11p and LTE network by delivering real‐time road weather and road traffic observation data. These pilots filed measurements show the potential of combining short‐ and long‐range technologies for enhanced road safety.

The industry is providing vehicles with advanced features and technologies that allows vehicles to connect and communicate with their nearby environment. These technologies' umbrella term, Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) are aimed to enhance road traffic efficiency, safety and assist the drivers in multiple ways. The C-ITS communication system should be able to offer the functional benefits to different sets of use-cases, each having a particular sub-set of requirements. In this paper some of the relevant use-case scenarios utilizing road weather and traffic information are studied in terms of communication technology. The key requirements for C-ITS use-case scenarios are analyzed and an evaluation of the ITS-G5 protocol stack is performed. The performance of ITS-G5 in use-case scenarios is considered testing messages (alerts) on road weather and traffic information in realistic environments. The results indicate that the performance of ITS-G5 in tested use-case scenarios offers 90-98% success rate in the delivery of safety messages at a transmission frequency of 10Hz. Also, ITS-G5 delivers safety alerts with a minimum delay so that it satisfies the C-ITS use-case requirements in real environments. The C-ITS pilot platform also performs efficiently in terms of transmitting packets from a safe distance with minimum network latency and packet loss between vehicles and infrastructure. C-ITS pilot use-cases were tested on the platform developed and tailored by the Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI).

VANETs (Vehicular Ad hoc Networks) operating in conjunction with road-side infrastructure connecting road-side infrastructure are an emerging field of wireless communication technology in the vehicular communication’s domain. For VANETs, the IEEE 802.11p-based ITS-G5 is one of the key standards for communication globally. This research work integrates the ITS-G5 with a cellular-based 5G Test Network (5GTN). The resulting advanced heterogeneous Vehicular Network (VN) test-bed works as an effective platform for traffic safety between vehicles and road-side-infrastructure. This test-bed network provides a flexible framework to exploit vehicle-based weather data and road observation information, creating a service architecture for VANETs that supports real-time intelligent traffic services. The network studied in this paper aims to deliver improved road safety by providing real-time weather forecast, road friction information and road traffic related services. This article presents the implementation of a realistic test-bed in Northern Finland and the field measurement results of the heterogeneous VANETs considering the speed of vehicle, latency, good-put time and throughput. The field measurement results have been obtained in a state-of-the-art hybrid VANET system supporting special road weather services. Based on field measurement results, we suggest an efficient solution for a comprehensive hybrid vehicular networking infrastructure exploiting road weather information.

Reliable communications are essential to provide intelligent services to connected cars. For operational services, connected vehicles in VANET (Vehicle Ad hoc Networks) regularly transfer large amounts of data related to vehicular safety. Similarly, V2X (Vehicle‐to‐Everything) communications include vehicles exchanging information with each other and with infrastructure that is, Vehicle‐to‐Infrastructure (V2I) and Vehicle‐to‐Vehicle (V2V). This paper has analyzed the performance of IEEE 802.11p and 5G test network in a collaborative manner under realistic conditions. For performance analysis the exchange of safety‐critical road weather and traffic information has been performed to enhance the traffic safety and traffic efficiency in the domain of intelligent transportation system (ITS). The vehicular connectivity is provided in V2V and V2I scenarios by utilizing short‐range IEEE 802.11 standard or cellular approaches, such as the 5G network. Here, we consider combining these technologies in a cooperative manner to exploit jointly their advantages. In this cooperative heterogeneous network, the IEEE 802.11p supports safety‐related pilot use cases while the provision of non‐safety‐related pilot use cases are supported by the 5G test network. The performance analysis revealed that the IEEE 802.11p performs quite reasonably well with restricted mobility in contrast of 5G test network in a collaborative manner to avoid road accidents.