An evaluation of inter-vehicle ad hoc networks based on realistic vehicular traces

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) using WLAN tech-nology have recently received considerable attention. The evaluation of VANET routing protocols often involves simulators since management and operation of a large number of real vehicular nodes is expensive. We study the behavior of routing protocols in VANETs by using mobility information obtained from a microscopic vehicular traffic simulator that is based on the on the real road maps of Switzerland. The performance of AODV and GPSR is significantly in uenced by the choice of mobility model, and we observe a significantly reduced packet delivery ratio when employing the realistic traffic simulator to control mobility of nodes. To address the performance limitations of communication pro-tocols in VANETs, we investigate two improvements that increase the packet delivery ratio and reduce the delay until the first packet arrives. The traces used in this study are available for public download.