Vehicular Communications for Sustainable Mobility and Transportation

Dear Colleagues,

The emergence of advanced Vehicular Communications in 5G and Beyond 5G Wireless standards has paved the way to new services and applications aimed at improving road safety, travel comfort, and traffic efficiency, while reducing the environmental impact of users’ mobility, transportation networks and the communication itself. Vehicular Communications are then of paramount importance for Sustainable Mobility and Transportation. Among other benefits, wireless connectivity among vehicles (referred to as V2V communications) and between vehicles and the infrastructure (referred to as V2I communications) will help to increase the capacity of existing transportation networks by adding new communication capabilities to connected vehicles. In particular, autonomous driving applications such as platooning are fundamental for energy and fuel saving in the roads. CO2 emissions can also be reduced with a more efficient management of the traffic using the communication (through optimised driving itineraries, vehicle speed harmonization, green light coordination, etc.) which reduces the congestion of the roads. Shared mobility can also be encouraged by better communications, which has a clear impact on the environmental footprint of mobility. In fact, the European Commission, in its Green Deal, has recognized the importance of 5G and these new communications to achieve its goals of reduced emissions and air pollution and is supporting Cooperative-Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) and Cooperative Connected and Automated Mobility (CCAM) in its research programs and policies.

All those applications, however, may impose very strict Quality of Service (QoS) and latency requirements in the communication system, which should be addressed by future vehicular communications technologies. For example, one of the aspects currently under test is the ability of cellular V2X systems to provide seamless connectivity in cross-border corridors. Artificial intelligence, edge computing, millimeter waves, or advanced MIMO schemes, are just a few technologies whose integration with the advanced vehicular communication standards may help to fulfill the above mentioned requirements.

This Special Issue is seeking for high quality original contributions addressing the main research challenges in vehicular communications. The possible contributions should consist in original unpublished theoretical or practical analyses validated by simulations or real testbeds. Impact of vehicular communications on sustainability should be addressed, either quantitatively or qualitatively, in the contributions.

Dr. Sandra Roger
Dr. Carmen Botella-Mascarell
Dr. David Martín-Sacristán
Guest Editors

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