Incident detection is the process by which an incident is brought to the attention of traffic operators in order to design and activate a response plan. To minimize the detection time is crucial to mitigate the incident severity for victims as well to reduce the risk of secondary crashes. Automated incident information dissemination and traffic conditions is useful to alert in-route drivers to decide alternative routes on unexpected traffic congestion and may be also used for the incident recovery process, namely to optimize the response plan including the “nearest” rescue teams, thereby shortening their response times.
Wireless vehicular communications, notably the emergent IEEE 802.11p protocol, is the enabling technology providing timely, dependable and secure properties that are essential for the devised target application. However, there are still some open issues with vehicular communications that require further research efforts.
This paper presents an overview of the state of the art in wireless vehicular communications and describes the field operational tests proposed within the scope of the upcoming FP7 project ICSI - Intelligent Cooperative Sensing for Improved traffic efficiency.