Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are a subclass of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) in which the mobile nodes are vehicles; these vehicles are autonomous systems connected by wireless communication on a peer-to-peer basis. They are self-organized, self-configured and self-controlled infrastructure-less networks. This kind of network has the advantage of being able to be set-up and deployed anywhere and anytime because it has no infrastructure set-up and no central administration. Distributing information between these vehicles over long ranges in such networks, however, is a very challenging task, since sharing information always has a risk attached to it especially when the information is confidential. The disclosure of such information to anyone else other than the intended parties could be extremely damaging, particularly in military applications where controlling the dissemination of messages is essential. This thesis therefore provides a review of the issue of security in VANET and MANET; it also surveys existing solutions for dissemination control. It highlights a particular area not adequately addressed until now: controlling information flow in VANETs. This thesis contributes a policy-based framework to control the dissemination of messages communicated between nodes in order to ensure that message remains confidential not only during transmission, but also after it has been communicated to another peer, and to keep the message contents private to an originator-defined subset of nodes in the VANET. This thesis presents a novel framework to control data dissemination in vehicle ad hoc networks in which policies are attached to messages as they are sent between peers. This is done by automatically attaching policies along with messages to specify how the information can be used by the receiver, so as to prevent disclosure of the messages other than consistent with the requirements of the originator. These requirements are represented as a set of policy rules that explicitly instructs recipients how the information contained in messages can be disseminated to other nodes in order to avoid unintended disclosure. This thesis describes the data dissemination policy language used in this work; and further describes the policy rules in order to be a suitable and understandable language for the framework to ensure the confidentiality requirement of the originator. This thesis also contributes a policy conflict resolution that allows the originator to be asked for up-to-date policies and preferences. The framework was evaluated using the Network Simulator (NS-2) to provide and check whether the privacy and confidentiality of the originators’ messages were met. A policy-based agent protocol and a new packet structure were implemented in this work to manage and enforce the policies attached to packets at every node in the VANET. Some case studies are presented in this thesis to show how data dissemination can be controlled based on the policy of the originator. The results of these case studies show the feasibility of our research to control the data dissemination between nodes in VANETs. NS-2 is also used to test the performance of the proposed policy-based agent protocol and demonstrate its effectiveness using various network performance metrics (average delay and overhead).

Τα αυτοκινητιστικά δυστυχήματα αποτελούν μια από τις κυριότερες αιτίες θανάτου παγκοσμίως. Ο αυξανόμενος αριθμός τους οδήγησε στην συνειδητοποίηση ότι η χρήση προηγμένης τεχνολογίας για την κατασκευή ασφαλέστερων οχημάτων είναι απαραίτητη για την μείωση των ατυχημάτων και κατά συνέπεια των θανάτων που οφείλονται σε αυτά. Από τη στιγμή που οι τεχνολογικές εξελίξεις επέτρεψαν την ενσωμάτωση φθηνών, χαμηλής κατανάλωσης συστημάτων με μεγάλη επεξεργαστική ταχύτητα σε οχήματα, κατέστη προφανές ότι περίπλοκες τεχνικές υπολογιστικής όρασης μπορούσαν πλέον να χρησιμοποιηθούν για την υποβοήθηση της οδήγησης. Σε αυτή την κατεύθυνση, η παρούσα διατριβή εστιάζει στην ανάπτυξη καινοτόμων λύσεων για διαφορετικά κομμάτια που εμπλέκονται στα προηγμένα συστήματα υποβοήθησης του οδηγού. Πιο συγκεκριμένα, σε αυτή την διατριβή προτείνονται καινοτόμα υποσυστήματα για την αναγνώριση σημάτων οδικής κυκλοφορίας, την αναγνώριση φωτεινών σηματοδοτών, τον εντοπισμό προπορευόμενου οχήματος και τον εντοπισμό δρόμου. Οι τεχνικές που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν για την ανάπτυξη των προτεινόμενων λύσεων βασίζονται στην χρωματική επεξεργασία εικόνας με έμφαση στην ανεξαρτησία από την φωτεινότητα της σκηνής, στην χρήση πληροφορίας συμμετρίας για τον εντοπισμό χαρακτηριστικών αντικειμένων (όπως σήματα οδικής κυκλοφορίας, φωτεινοί σηματοδότες και οχήματα), στην χώρο-χρονική παρακολούθηση των εντοπισμένων αντικειμένων και στην αυτόματη κατάτμηση εικόνας για τον εντοπισμό δρόμου. Τα προτεινόμενα συστήματα αναπτύχθηκαν με στόχο την ανθεκτικότητα σε αλλαγές της φωτεινότητας ή τις καιρικές συνθήκες, καθώς και στην οδήγηση σε απαιτητικά περιβάλλοντα. Επίσης, έχει δοθεί ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στην προοπτική υλοποίησης συστημάτων πραγματικού χρόνου. Τα αποτελέσματα που παρουσιάζονται σε αυτή την διατριβή αποδεικνύουν την ανωτερότητα των προτεινόμενων μεθόδων έναντι αντίστοιχων της σχετικής βιβλιογραφίας, ειδικά στις περιπτώσεις του εντοπισμού προπορευόμενου οχήματος και του εντοπισμού δρόμου. Ελπίζουμε ότι μέρη της έρευνας αυτής θα εμπνεύσουν νέες προσεγγίσεις για τις μελλοντικές υλοποιήσεις αντίστοιχων συστημάτων. / Traffic accidents are one of the main reasons for the loss of human lives worldwide. Their increasing number has led to the realization that the use of advanced technology for manufacturing safer vehicles is imperative for limiting casualties. Since technological breakthroughs allowed the incorporation of cheap, low consumption systems with high processing speeds in vehicles, it became apparent that complex computer vision techniques could be used to assist drivers in navigating their vehicles. In this direction, this thesis focuses on providing novel solutions for different tasks involved in advanced driver assistance systems. More specifically, this thesis proposes novel sub-systems for traffic sign recognition, traffic light recognition, preceding vehicle detection and road detection. The techniques used for developing the proposed solutions are based on color image processing with a focus on illumination invariance, using symmetry information for man-made objects (like traffic signs, traffic lights and vehicles) detection, spatiotemporal tracking of detected results and automated image segmentation for road detection. The proposed systems were implemented with a goal of robustness to changes of illumination and weather conditions, as well as to diverse driving environments. A special focus on the prospect for real-time implementation has also been given. The results presented in this thesis indicate the superiority of the proposed methods to their counterparts found in relevant literature in both normal and challenging conditions, especially in the cases of preceding vehicle detection and road detection. Hopefully, parts of this research will provide new insights for future developments in the field of intelligent transportation.

The main aim of transport stakeholders has always been to transport freight efficiently, as this efficiency contributes to the growth and success of their business. A country like Namibia is no different as the efficiency of transport lies in the effective utilisation of carrier capacity in any direction. Due to the various types of freight, transport operators rarely have the capacity to cover all freight movement requests. This research put the empty runs experienced by most of the Namibian transporters at 33%. Empty runs could however be reduced through collaboration and sharing of capacity among transport stakeholders. Multi-agent systems (MAS) are various individual computer agents that are configured independently to interact with other agents to achieve one goal. These systems have been explored as an approach to achieve collaboration among transporter stakeholders. Taking into consideration the characteristics and requirements of MAS, this research was able to conduct a feasibility of its implementation within Namibia. Concluding with an evaluation of available Multi-agent based systems that could achieve collaboration and reduce empty runs in the Namibian transport environment. / Information Science / M. Tech. (Information Technology)

Many Climate Scientists believe that global warming will produce more extreme weather events such as tropical storms, hurricanes, intense rainfall, and flooding. These events are considered to be the most catastrophic natural events for transportation systems especially in coastal areas. Due to the severe damage from storm surge and flooding. Evaluating the magnitude of possible storm surges and their impacts on transportation systems in coastal areas is fundamental to developing adaptation plans and impact assessments to mitigate the damage. This thesis focuses on existing transportation systems in the Georgia coastal area that could be affected by several storm surges. An existing storm surge model is used to estimate the storm surges and the surge heights based on the category, direction, and forward speed of a storm. The ground elevation of the ports, interstates, state roads, railroads, and the principal airports on the Georgia coast are identified through a GIS analysis using the national elevation data set. Having the storm surge elevation and the elevation of the existing infrastructure, a GIS study is performed to identify those parts of the transportation system that will be affected by each type of storm giving results such as the length or sections of transportation assets under or above the surge elevation. A literature review of storm surge, rising sea levels, and their impacts on coastal bridges, roads, airports, ports, and railroads is presented in the thesis. Also, a description of the software used to analyze and estimate the impacts of climate change on transportation systems is described.

The thesis is composed of two main parts. The first part deals with a microscopic traffic flow theory. Models describing the individual acceleration, deceleration and lane-changing behavior are formulated and the emerging collective traffic dynamics are investigated by means of numerical simulations. The models and simulation tools presented provide the methodical prerequisites for the second part of the thesis in which a novel concept of a traffic-adaptive control strategy for ACC systems is presented. The impact of such systems on the traffic dynamics can solely be investigated and assessed by traffic simulations. The focus is on future adaptive cruise control (ACC) systems and their potential applications in the context of vehicle-based intelligent transportation systems. In order to ensure that ACC systems are implemented in ways that improve rather than degrade traffic conditions, the thesis proposes an extension of ACC systems towards traffic-adaptive cruise control by means of implementing an actively jam-avoiding driving strategy. The newly developed traffic assistance system introduces a driving strategy layer which modifies the driver's individual settings of the ACC driving parameters depending on the local traffic situation. Whilst the conventional operational control layer of an ACC system calculates the response to the input sensor data in terms of accelerations and decelerations on a short time scale, the automated adaptation of the ACC driving parameters happens on a somewhat longer time scale of, typically, minutes. By changing only temporarily the comfortable parameter settings of the ACC system in specific traffic situations, the driving strategy is capable of improving the traffic flow efficiency whilst retaining the comfort for the driver. The traffic-adaptive modifications are specified relative to the driver settings in order to maintain the individual preferences. The proposed system requires an autonomous real-time detection of the five traffic states by each ACC-equipped vehicle. The formulated algorithm is based on the evaluation of the locally available data such as the vehicle's velocity time series and its geo-referenced position (GPS) in conjunction with a digital map. It is assumed that the digital map is complemented by information about stationary bottlenecks as most of the observed traffic flow breakdowns occur at these fixed locations. By means of a heuristic, the algorithm determines which of the five traffic states mentioned above applies best to the actual traffic situation. Optionally, inter-vehicle and infrastructure-to-car communication technologies can be used to further improve the accuracy of determining the respective traffic state by providing non-local information. By means of simulation, we found that the automatic traffic-adaptive driving strategy improves traffic stability and increases the effective road capacity. Depending on the fraction of ACC vehicles, the driving strategy "passing a bottleneck" effects a reduction of the bottleneck strength and therefore delays (or even prevents) the breakdown of traffic flow. Changing to the driving mode "leaving the traffic jam" increases the outflow from congestion resulting in reduced queue lengths in congested traffic and, consequently, a faster recovery to free flow conditions. The current travel time (as most important criterion for road users) and the cumulated travel time (as an indicator of the system performance) are used to evaluate the impact on the quality of service. While traffic congestion in the reference scenario was completely eliminated when simulating a proportion of 25% ACC vehicles, travel times were significantly reduced even with much lower penetration rates. Moreover, the cumulated travel times decreased consistently with the increase in the proportion of ACC vehicles. / In der Arbeit wird ein neues verkehrstelematisches Konzept für ein verkehrseffizientes Fahrverhalten entwickelt und als dezentrale Strategie zur Vermeidung und Auflösung von Verkehrsstaus auf Richtungsfahrbahnen vorgestellt. Die operative Umsetzung erfolgt durch ein ACC-System, das um eine, auf Informationen über die lokale Verkehrssituation basierende, automatisierte Fahrstrategie erweitert wird. Die Herausforderung bei einem Eingriff in das individuelle Fahrverhalten besteht - unter Berücksichtigung von Sicherheits-, Akzeptanz- und rechtlichen Aspekten - im Ausgleich der Gegensätze Fahrkomfort und Verkehrseffizienz. Während sich ein komfortables Fahren durch große Abstände bei geringen Fahrzeugbeschleunigungen auszeichnet, erfordert ein verkehrsoptimierendes Verhalten kleinere Abstände und eine schnellere Anpassung an Geschwindigkeitsänderungen der umgebenden Fahrzeuge. Als allgemeiner Lösungsansatz wird eine verkehrsadaptive Fahrstrategie vorgeschlagen, die ein ACC-System mittels Anpassung der das Fahrverhalten charakterisierenden Parameter umsetzt. Die Wahl der Parameter erfolgt in Abhängigkeit von der lokalen Verkehrssituation, die auf der Basis der im Fahrzeug zur Verfügung stehenden Informationen automatisch detektiert wird. Durch die Unterscheidung verschiedener Verkehrssituationen wird ein temporärer Wechsel in ein verkehrseffizientes Fahrregime (zum Beispiel beim Herausfahren aus einem Stau) ermöglicht. Machbarkeit und Wirkungspotenzial der verkehrsadaptiven Fahrstrategie werden im Rahmen eines mikroskopischen Modellierungsansatzes simuliert und hinsichtlich der kollektiven Verkehrsdynamik, insbesondere der Stauentstehung und Stauauflösung, auf mehrspurigen Richtungsfahrbahnen bewertet. Die durchgeführte Modellbildung, insbesondere die Formulierung eines komplexen Modells des menschlichen Fahrverhaltens, ermöglicht eine detaillierte Analyse der im Verkehr relevanten kollektiven Stabilität und einer von der Stabilität abhängigen stochastischen Streckenkapazität. Ein tieferes Verständnis der Stauentstehung und -ausbildung wird durch das allgemeine Konzept der Engstelle erreicht. Dieses findet auch bei der Entwicklung der Strategie für ein stauvermeidendes Fahrverhalten Anwendung. In der Arbeit wird die stauvermeidende und stauauflösende Wirkung eines individuellen, verkehrsadaptiven Fahrverhaltens bereits für geringe Ausstattungsgrade nachgewiesen. Vor dem Hintergrund einer zu erwartenden Verbreitung von ACC-Systemen ergibt sich damit eine vielversprechende Option für die Steigerung der Verkehrsleistung durch ein teilautomatisiertes Fahren. Der entwickelte Ansatz einer verkehrsadaptiven Fahrstrategie ist unabhängig vom ACC-System. Er erweitert dessen Funktionalität im Hinblick auf zukünftige, informationsbasierte Fahrerassistenzsysteme um eine neue fahrstrategische Dimension. Die lokale Interpretation der Verkehrssituation kann neben einer verkehrsadaptiven ACC-Regelung auch der Entwicklung zukünftiger Fahrerinformationssysteme dienen.

VINNOVA;KTH;URBS / Um conceito bastante em voga atualmente e o de cidades inteligentes. Ele define um tipo de desenvolvimento urbano capaz de reduzir os impactos ambientais, melhorando os modelos atuais de acesso a recursos naturais, transportes, gestão do lixo, climatização residencial e sobretudo a gestão da energia (produção e distribuição). O massivo volume de dados produzidos por cidades inteligentes oferece uma grande oportunidade para analisar, compreender e melhorar o modo como elas funcionam e se desenvolvem. Esta explosão na quantidade de informações tem elevado a importância do aprendizado a partir de dados a um patamar extremamente elevado. Esta dissertação tem por objetivo descrever uma metodologia para aquisição e exploração de dados de um dos mais importantes pilares de cidades inteligentes: o sistema de transporte público. Como obter, armazenar e utilizar tais dados a fim de prover a todos os envolvidos, serviços telemáticos de alto valor agregado e o problema que se busca resolver neste trabalho. Cinco serviços telemáticos são propostos sob forma de prova de conceito: avaliação da cobertura da rede de transporte atual, seguida de uma proposta de novas linhas de ônibus; avaliação indireta da ocupação diária dos ônibus da cidade; cerca-eletrônica com os limites geográficos definidos pelos itinerários das linhas; serviços de alerta de velocidade e de manutenção. Os resultados são bastante coerentes e promissores, abrindo um grande leque de possíveis trabalhos futuros a serem explorados. / Smart city is a very trendy concept today. It defines a type of urban development capable of reducing environmental impacts, enhancing current models of access to natural resources, better transportation systems, waste management, residential climatization and, above all, energy management (production and distribution). The huge data volume produced by smart cities offers a great opportunity to analyze, understand and improve the way cities work and grow. This explosion in the amount of digital information has elevated the importance of learning from data to a higher level. This document aims at describing a methodology for acquiring and exploring data from one of the most important pillars of smart cities: the public transportation system. How to acquire, store and use such data in order to provide to all stakeholders telematics services with high added value is the problem that is sought to solve in this work. Five telematics services proof of concept are proposed: assessment of current network coverage followed by the proposal of some new bus lines; indirect evaluation of buses’ passengers occupation during the day; geofence with geographical boundaries according to itineraries; speed alert and maintenance reminder services. The results are very coherent and promising, opening up a wide range of possible future work to be explored.

Road transport mobility continues to be a challenge to the City of Johannesburg (CoJ)’s economy in general. Traffic signals, their remote monitoring and control systems are the current implemented Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), but daily systematic faults and maintenance uncertainties on such systems decrease the effectiveness of traffic engineers’ intersections optimization techniques. Inefficient electrical power supply to such ITS is a challenge, with conditional power cuts and fluctuations, uncertainties on traffic control system faults. Another factor leading to the problem is the communication channel which is using traditional modems which are not reliable. Reporting through both customer complaints and such unreliable remote monitoring systems makes maintenance to be ineffective. In this dissertation, the factors leading to the faults and uncertainties are considered. The proposed solution considers the important concerns of ITS, such as electrical power source performance optimization technique, road traffic control systems compatibility and communications systems / Electrical and Mining Engineering / M. Tech. (Electrical Engineering)

Modern vehicles are designed to protect occupants in the event of a crash with some vehicles better at this than others. However, passenger protection during an accident has shown to be not enough in many high impact crashes. Statistics have shown that the human error is the number one contributor to road accidents. This research study explores how driver error can be reduced through technology which observes driver behaviour and reacts when certain unwanted patterns in behaviour have been detected. Finally a system that detects driver fatigue and driver distraction has been developed using non-invasive machine vision concepts to monitor observable driver behaviour. / Electrical Engineering / M. Tech. (Electrical Engineering)

Cette thèse présente des applications véhiculaires à différentes échelles : de la petite qui permet d'effectuer des tests réels de communication et de service ; à des plus grandes incluant plus de contraintes mais permettant des simulations sur l'ensemble du réseau. Dans ce contexte nous soulignons l'importance d'avoir et de traiter des données réelles afin de pouvoir interpréter correctement les résultats. A travers ces échelles nous proposons différents services utilisant la communication V2V et V2I. Nous ne prétendons pas prendre le contrôle du véhicule, notre but est de montrer le potentiel de la communication à travers différents services. La petite échelle se focalise sur un service à un feu de circulation permettant d'améliorer les temps de parcours et d'attente, et la consommation en CO2 et en carburant. La moyenne échelle se situant sur un rond-point, permet grâce à un algorithme décentralisé, d'améliorer ces mêmes paramètres, mais montre également qu'avec une prise de décision simple et décentralisée, le système est robuste face à la perte de paquet, à la densité, aux comportements humains ou encore aux taux d'équipement. Enfin à l'échelle d'une ville, nous montrons que grâce à des décisions prises de manière locale et décentralisée, avec seulement un accès à une information partielle dans le réseau, nous obtenons des résultats proches des solutions centralisées. La quantité de données transitant ainsi dans le réseau est considérablement diminuée. Nous testons également la réponse de ces systèmes en cas de perturbation plus ou moins importante tels que des travaux, un acte terroriste ou une catastrophe naturelle. Les modèles permettant une prise de décision locale grâce aux informations délivrées autour du véhicule montrent leur potentiel que se soit avec de la communication avec l'infrastructure V2I ou entre les véhicules V2V. / In this thesis we present vehicular applications across different scales: from small scale that allows real tests of communication and services; to larger scales that include more constraints but allowing simulations on the entire network. In this context, we highlight the importance of real data and real urban topology in order to properly interpret the results of simulations. We describe different services using V2V and V2I communication. In each of them we do not pretend to take control of the vehicle, the driver is present in his vehicle, our goal is to show the potential of communication through services taking into account the difficulties outlined above. In the small scale, we focus on a service with a traffic light that improves travel times, waiting times and CO2 and fuel consumption. The medium scale is a roundabout, it allows, through a decentralized algorithm, to improve the same parameters. It also shows that with a simple and decentralized decision-making process, the system is robust to packet loss, density, human behavior or equipment rate. Finally on the scale of a city, we show that local and decentralized decisions, with only a partial access to information in the network, lead to results close to centralized solutions. The amount of data in the network is greatly reduced. We also test the response of these systems in case of significant disruption in the network such as roadworks, terrorist attack or natural disaster. Models, allowing local decision thanks to information delivered around the vehicle, show their potential whatsoever with the V2I communication or V2V.

Orientador: Prof. Dr. João Henrique Kleinschmidt / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do ABC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia da Informação, Santo André, 2018. / Em 2006 o governo brasileiro instituiu o sistema nacional de identificação automática de veículos (SINIAV), cujo objetivo principal é fiscalizar todos os veículos através da tecnologia de identificação por rádio frequência (RFID). Entretanto, esse projeto tem um grande desafio tecnológico com relação a conectividade e transmissão de dados quando aplicado dentro das cidades, o que pode dificultar sua escalabilidade. Por isso, o objetivo dessa dissertação é estudar a viabilidade técnica do uso do LoRa para a transmissão dos dados provenientes da fiscalização eletrônica de veículos através de RFID. Então, uma análise de desempenho de um sistema composto por uma antena RFID, para realizar as leituras das tags, e um transmissor LoRa, para enviar essas leituras a um gateway conectado à internet, foi realizado e as métricas de taxa de perda de pacotes (PER) e taxa de envio de pacotes (throughput) da transmissão do LoRa foram medidas. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que em determinados cenários é possível obter uma taxa de perda de pacotes abaixo de 20% e uma taxa de envio de pacotes acima de 60 envios por minuto, o que torna o uso do LoRa uma tecnologia viável para essa aplicação de fiscalização e outras aplicações relacionadas à sistemas inteligentes de transporte (ITS). / In 2006, the Brazilian government instituted the national system of automatic vehicle identification (SINIAV), whose main objective is to control all vehicles through radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. However, this project has a great technological challenge regarding connectivity and data transmission when applied within cities, which may hinder its scalability. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is to study the technical feasibility of the use of LoRa for the transmission of data from the electronic surveillance of vehicles through RFID. Then, a performance analysis of a system composed of an RFID antenna to perform the readings of the tags and a LoRa transmitter to send those readings to a gateway connected to the Internet was performed and the packet loss rate metrics (PER) and LoRa transmission throughput rates were measured. The results show that in certain scenarios it is possible to obtain a packet loss rate of less than 20% and a packet sending rate of more than 60 packets per minute, which makes the use of LoRa a viable technology for this enforcement application and other applications related to Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS).