An Analysis of Route Duration Times in Vehicular Networks Considering Influential Factors

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are part of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and their main objective is to provide communication between vehicles. As self-organizing and configuring networks, with decentralized control, their performance is totally dependent on the route duration times. This study proposes an analysis of the route duration times in vehicular networks, considering three influential factors: speed, density and travel orientation. Simulation experiments corroborate that the route duration times increases in denser networks and when vehicles travel in the same direction. However, contrary to common sense, unexpectedly, it is demonstrated that the route duration times in realistic vehicle environments do not decrease as the vehicles speed increases due to the mobility restrictions in this environments (stops at traffic lights and road crossings, braking to avoid collisions, acceleration an deceleration).