Recent Advances in Communications and Networking Technology  Send Orders for Reprints to reprints@benthamscience.ae Recent Advances in Communications and Networking Technology, 2015, 4, 103-116 103 Development of a Freeway Queue Detection and Warning System using Ad-hoc Control and DSRC based V2V Communication Umair Ibrahim a,* , Mohammad I. Hayee a , Eil Kwon b and Max Donath c a Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN, USA b Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, MN,USA c Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN, USA Abstract: This paper presents the architecture, functionality, and field evaluation of a newly developed real-time advanced warning system using dedicated short range communication (DSRC) based vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication without the need for a DSRC road- side unit to control the system operation. The developed system dynamically acquires im- portant traffic parameters such as starting location of congestion (SLoC), ending location of congestion (ELoC) and travel time (TT), and provides useful traffic alerts in real time to improve drivers’ situational awareness. The newly developed system utilizes an ad-hoc host vehicle selected from among the DSRC equipped vehicles present on the road, to act as central controller for acquisition and dissemination of traffic parameters. The ad-hoc host is selected by detecting the deceleration speed profiles of several DSRC equipped vehicles that are about to enter the back-of-the-queue. The selected ad-hoc host then acquires a new set of traffic parameters, as well as broadcasts useful alerts to vehicles trailing far behind the back-of-the- queue. The algorithm presented here makes it fully adaptable to any congestion scenario whether due to a work zone, an incident, or due to regular rush hour traffic. The developed system is well suited for operational deployment, particularly during the initial phase of the DSRC market penetration, because it only needs 15- 25% of DSRC market penetration to acquire traffic parameters. The proposed system also incorporates DSRC equipped programmable changeable message signs (PCMSs) to convey the warning messages to non-DSRC equipped vehicles. Keywords: Congestion, DSRC, DSRC market penetration, end-of-queue warning, freeway, intelligent transportation systems, onboard unit, PCMS, roadside unit, travel time, traffic management, V2V, work zone. 1. INTRODUCTION Long traffic queues and delays are common due to growing traffic demands [1]. Traffic queues can build fairly quickly and often grow past the ad- vanced static warning signs in rush hour traffic or work zone areas. In such situations, many drivers catch the back-of-the-queue by surprise increasing the probability of rear end collisions [2-4]. A strat- egy to counter such rear-end collisions is to pro- vide advanced warning messages to drivers of the vehicles that have yet to reach the back-of-the- queue [5, 6]. A number of research studies have estimated that an advanced warning can signify *Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Minnesota Duluth, P.O. Box: 55812, Duluth, MN, USA; Tel +1-218-726-6743; E-mail: ibra0130@d.umn.edu cantly reduce the number of rear-end collisions [7]. Additionally, advanced warning can also help some drivers take an alternative route before enter- ing the back-of-the-queue, which in turn helps lower the congestion and thereby improve traffic mobility [8]. Many advanced warning traffic information systems have been developed using a variety of wireless technologies e.g., cellular, Bluetooth, and radio frequency identification [9-15]. However, all these traffic information systems require special roadside infrastructure as well as depend on a third party cellular infrastructure support to acquire, process and disseminate traffic data. Furthermore, the traffic data gathered by such systems is quite sporadic and infrequent, which can be useful for traffic management and general advisory purposes but cannot help drivers to make 2215-08 /15 $58.00+.00 © 2015 Bentham Science Publishers