A Survey of Wireless Backhauling Solutions for ITS

Abstract

The deployment of more sustainable land transportation is a non-debatable global issue. It is generally agreed that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) will play the role of the main enabler to achieve the ambitious objective of improving transportation efficiency, thus reducing pollution, time and resource wastage, and accidents. In this chapter, after briefly introducing the general architecture of the ICT infrastructure for the new generation of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs), the authors provide a survey of the wireless technologies available for implementing the data network required to transfer information between the peripheral devices, installed roadside and in the vehicles, and the data center where the actual storage and logic resides. Specifically, they consider the following alternatives: IEEE 802.11 in a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) configuration, IEEE 802.16/WiMAX, Long Term Evolution (LTE), and HiperLAN/2. The latter is investigated in further details by providing results from preliminary laboratory trials carried out in the Italian project IPERMOB.