Considering driver behaviour in vehicular delay tolerant networks

A key component for vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET) simulations is a realistic vehicular mobility model, as this ensures that the conclusions drawn from simulation experiments will carry through to the real deployments. Node mobility in a vehicular network is strongly affected by the driving behaviour such as route choices. While route choice models have been extensively studied in the transportation community, as far as we know, the effects of driver behaviour on vehicular network simulations have not been discussed much in the networking literature. In this work, we set out to understand the effects of destination selection vehicular network simulation. We also discuss how different destination selection models affect event broadcasting in ITS application. We conclude that selecting a sufficient level of detail in the simulations, such as modelling of destination selection, is critical for evaluating VANET protocol design.