Opportunistic system for collaborative traffic monitoring using existing IEEE 802.11 networks

Traffic monitoring and control is getting more and more important as the number of vehicles and traffic jams steadily grow. Nevertheless, traffic control is still predominantly done by visual means using strategically placed video cameras. To be more effective, proposals to improve the traffic conditions should consider automated monitoring systems. This work proposes an opportunistic system for collaborative traffic monitoring using available IEEE 802.11 networks. Based on the information received by 802.11 beacon frames, vehicles provide the data needed by a central entity to handle and disseminate information about traffic conditions on urban roads, exploiting readily available network resources. Experiments performed with data from a real public wireless network, in Rio de Janeiro, demonstrate the possibility of obtaining traffic conditions with our proposed traffic monitoring method. The system results are close to GPS traces. Moreover, the proposed system facilitates large-scale adoption since it does not require specific hardware.