Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect
ScienceDirect
Available
Procedia online at Science
Computer www.sciencedirect.com
00 (2018) 000–000
Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
ScienceDirect
Procedia Computer Science 151 (2019) 1158–1163

International Workshop on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM)

International Workshop on Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM)
April 29 – May 2, 2019, Leuven, Belgium
April 29 – May 2, 2019, Leuven, Belgium
Road
Road traffic
traffic congestion
congestion detection
detection in
in VANET
VANET networks
networks
Badreddine Cherkaouia,*, Abderrahim Beni-Hssaneaa, Mohamed El Fissaouiaa, Mohammed
Badreddine Cherkaouia,*, Abderrahim Beni-Hssane , Mohamed El Fissaoui , Mohammed
Erritalibb
Erritali
a
a
LAROSERI Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Sciences, Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco
b
TIAD LAROSERI
Laboratory,Laboratory, Department
computer science of Computer
department, Science,
Sciences FacultyFaculty,
and Technics of Sciences, Chouaib
University Doukkali
of
Sultan University,
Moulay El Jadida,
Slimane, Morocco
Béni-Mellal, Morocco.
b
TIAD Laboratory, computer science department, Sciences and Technics Faculty, University of Sultan Moulay Slimane, Béni-Mellal, Morocco.

Abstract
Abstract
In urban areas, the problem of congestion in road traffic presents itself as a very persistent problem which requires solutions.
In urbana areas,
During trafficthe problem
jam, severalof congestion
resources are in road traffic
wasted, presents
such as itself
time, fuel andas many
a veryother
persistent problem
resources. whichthe
Through requires
VANET solutions.
networks,
During
we can circulate useful information on the state of the traffic in order to guarantee fluidity and an easy circulation. Thenetworks,
a traffic jam, several resources are wasted, such as time, fuel and many other resources. Through the VANET vehicle-
we can circulate
to-vehicle (V2V)useful information
communication is on the of
a way state of the traffic
transmitting thisininformation
order to guarantee fluidity
in a VANET and an In
network. easy circulation.
this paper, we The vehicle-
present an
to-vehicle
approach to(V2V)
detectcommunication
the state of roadistraffic
a way inofurban
transmitting this information
areas based in a VANET
on the Big Data tools. network. In this paper, we present an
approach to detect the state of road traffic in urban areas based on the Big Data tools.
1877-0509
© 2019 The© 2019 The Authors.byPublished
Elsevier by Elsevier B.V.
1877-0509
This is an ©Authors.
2019
open access
Published
The Authors.
article Published
under the CC
B.V.
by Elsevier B.V.
BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This
This is
is an
an open
open access
access article
article under
under the
the CC
CC BY-NC-ND
BY-NC-ND license
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Peer-review
Peer-review under responsibility
under responsibilityof
ofthe
theConference
ConferenceProgram
Program Chairs
Chairs.
Peer-review under responsibility of the Conference Program Chairs
Keywords: Type your keywords here, separated by semicolons ;
Keywords: Type your keywords here, separated by semicolons ;

1. Introduction
1. Introduction
Urban traffic in cities has become a dilemma for users and managers. It is considered a waste of material,
Urban traffic in cities has become a dilemma for users and managers. It is considered a waste of material,
ecological and human resources. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication networks are primarily designed to save lives,
ecological and human resources. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication networks are primarily designed to save lives,
then make life better by saving other resources on earth. To do, the communication between vehicles and became a
then make life better by saving other resources on earth. To do, the communication between vehicles and became a
need, especially with the revolution of the Internet of Things. As a result, a type of network called VANET has
need, especially with the revolution of the Internet of Things. As a result, a type of network called VANET has
emerged. VANETs are derived from MANET networks which have the same basis, but with different peculiarities.
emerged. VANETs are derived from MANET networks which have the same basis, but with different peculiarities.
For example, the mobility of the nodes in a MANET network remains a random mobility, whereas the mobility in a
For example, the mobility of the nodes in a MANET network remains a random mobility, whereas the mobility in a
VANET network is organized according to a previously designed mobility model [1]. The speed of the nodes of each
VANET network is organized according to a previously designed mobility model [1]. The speed of the nodes of each
type is also found, in the nets MANET the speed of the nodes is reduced relative to nodes of a network VANET.
type is also found, in the nets MANET the speed of the nodes is reduced relative to nodes of a network VANET.
This has a direct impact on the network topology by making it constantly changing. Therefore, managing a changing
This has a direct impact on the network topology by making it constantly changing. Therefore, managing a changing
topology is both a problem and a special feature of vehicular networks. VANET communications are classified into
topology is both a problem and a special feature of vehicular networks. VANET communications are classified into

* Corresponding author.
* Corresponding
E-mail author.
address: b.cherkaoui@ucd.ac.ma
E-mail address: b.cherkaoui@ucd.ac.ma

1877-0509 © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

1877-0509
This © 2019
is an open Thearticle
access Authors. Published
under by Elsevier B.V.
the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of the Conference Program (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Chairs.
Peer-review
1877-0509 ©under
2019responsibility
The Authors. of the Conference
Published Program
by Elsevier B.V. Chairs.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Peer-review under responsibility of the Conference Program Chairs.
10.1016/j.procs.2019.04.165
 Badreddine Cherkaoui et al. / Procedia Computer Science 151 (2019) 1158–1163 1159
2 B.Cherkaoui and al./ Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000

two categories: vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-RSU (Road Side Unit) [2]. The vehicles regroup to form a
VANET network. Vehicles are considered a router or a wireless node with a range of about 100 to 300m. Out-of-
range vehicles lose connectivity to the network [3].
VANETs are used to transmit multiple types of data with multiple informations. Among this information, there is
the volume of the traffic and the flow counts which are a main cause of traffic jams. The exploitation of these can be
useful in order to synchronize the flow and solve the problem later. Moreover, the usefulness of this information is
manifested in the determination of safety and security [3]. The vehicular networks are characterized by their
immense size especially in the urban environment and the big cities. As a result, the data circulating inside is huge
and they are not exploited at 100%. Exploiting this unused data can solve several problems, namely road traffic and
prevent others. This unstructured data cannot be managed by traditional databases either in terms of capacity or in
terms of efficiency. The capacity and complexity of the data increases exponentially. Hence, the need to design
powerful processing tools to take advantage of these floating data. Among these tools, there is the suite of tools
Hadoop [4]. Hadoop (Highly Archived Distributed Object Oriented Programming) is large-scale distributed data
processing platform. Its functionalities can process and analyze metadata in its two forms: structured and
unstructured taking into account their complexity and their huge size.
Depending on the Hadoop features, this tool would be useful to solve the problem of structuring the data in the
first place, then analyze it to detect traffic jams on the roads. Vehicles change positions permanently gives us the
idea to instore a congestion detection system to have an exact condition on all roads in an area. Indeed, this method
can be used to generate dashboards indicating the state of the roads as a function of time for possible solutions
thereafter.
In this paper, a mobility model is generated using SUMO (Simulation of Urban Mobility). Then this mobility
model is integrated in NS-2 as a scenario. The trace files are extracted for the purpose of the treaties and analyzed
via our method that we have already instilled within Hadoop. As a result, congestion is detected on the roads as well
as intervals and peak times.
This paper is divided into five sections with the introduction being the first. The second section summarizes the
previous works done on the road traffic congestion detection in VANET environment. The third section presents our
proposed approach to detect the road traffic congestion. The fourth section, the authors discuss the results obtained
through the proposed method. The last section concludes and gives perspectives of our work.

2. Related work

The dilemma of road congestion has been addressed by several researchers in order to propose solutions. A road
congestion detection system is proposed by [8]. This system is hybrid, it combines between V2V and V2I
communications. The system processes and analyzes the stored data in order to identify the traffic jams and
subsequently instruct the vehicles for possible route changes. The system is developed using the Cassandra
algorithm. It is tested and validated using the OMnet++ and SUMO simulators. In [9], the authors proposed a
method to reduce traffic congestion of urban transport. A classification of urban areas into two classes: congested
and unencumbered. The vehicles can distinguish between the zones according to their itineraries with the possibility
of changing direction towards the unencumbered zone. A model designed by Daniel et al. [10] is aimed at the
efficient use of vehicular data in near real time. This model is based on an algorithm for analyzing the density of
vehicles on a given road. A method of selection of safe trajectories for autonomous vehicles is proposed by [11]. The
treatment of information, on real-life accidents using Big Data mining, allows choosing the said trajectories. In this
method, human intervention only concerns driving preferences at the beginning of the route. In [12], a multi-level
information fusion approach is proposed to detect road congestion in a VANET network. It combines the
classification-based information fusion fuzzy (FCMA) and the DempsterShafer evidence reasoning (D-SEMA).
FCMA draws the characteristics it needs from the D-SEMA mechanism to detect traffic congestion events. Its strong
point is the saving of the bandwidth during the treatment. To sum up, the majority of the methods and approaches
discussed are based on interactions between the various network components (vehicles and RSUs) to detect
congestion. In addition, location data is not used properly. Our approach allows us to process a huge amount of this
data using Big Data tools. The objective of this treatment is to be able to locate the most congested roads and
the peak times in order to subsequently elaborate a very fast and very effective plan of unblocking based on the
less congested roads.
1160 Badreddine Cherkaoui et al. / Procedia Computer Science 151 (2019) 1158–1163
B.Cherkaoui and al./ Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000 3

3. The proposed road traffic congestion detection method

As we mentioned earlier, the amount of unstructured information that a VANET network generates is not
exploited, hence the basic idea of using a powerful tool to process and analyze it afterwards. This will solve several
problems including traffic congestion [13]. A route is identified by its start and end coordinates. The vehicles are
also located by their coordinates in addition to the time stamp, because they change positions permanently, which
introduces the notion of time. Then, the vehicles circulate on a road at a time t. These are the variables of our
environment, whereas the roads are considered constants. The elements cited are the key to identifying congested
roads, their intervals and their peak moments (Figure 1a). For this, a detection mechanism, vehicles that cross the
roads, is set up in a Hadoop environment.

Fig. 1a: Road traffic illustration

Fig. 1b: Evolving network over time

Fig. 1: Illustration of road stats

As Figure 1b shows, the location of vehicles changes over time. The interpretation of Figure 1b can be considered
as snapshots of the state of a given area in very precise moments. So, we can say that the state of the area is a
sequence of instantaneous snapshots of the road network. Vehicles have four essential elements: the vehicle
identifier (VID), Latitude (X), Longitude (Y) and Timestamp (t)). Generally, roads have two lanes, one for the
outbound and the other for return, so here are the essential elements of a route: the route identifier (RID), lane 1 (X1,
Y1), and lane 2 (X2, Y2). The overall strategy of our approach is based on the restructuring and analysis of a large set
of historical data. Figure 2 describes our proposed approach:

Fig. 2: Road congestion detection strategy

The steps to detecting possible congestion are described in Figure 2. First, we initialize the environment and the
data needed to avoid overlap in multiple analyses. The initializations concern the coordinates of the roads, the size
of the network, the number of vehicles and the time stamps. Second, we group the trajectories in space and time to
 Badreddine Cherkaoui et al. / Procedia Computer Science 151 (2019) 1158–1163 1161
4 B.Cherkaoui and al./ Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000

locate the vehicles as a function of time on the area. This will allow us to detect congestion according to time and
subsequently extract precise information on the time and place of congestion. Algorithm 1 will allow us to get the
number of vehicles which crosses each route in the urban area inspected. Then we can deduce the most congested
roads. Then we can identify peak time interval for each route using Algorithm 3.And finally, Algorithm 4 gives us
the possibility to identify peak instants. In other words, we identify the instant t which the road is congested over the
entire simulation time.

V: is the total number of vehicles

Vn: is the number of vehicles in road n
Cr: is the set of congested roads.
RR: is the set of all roads.
Threshold: is calculated via the equation Q = K * U where Q is the debit of a given route, K is the capacity of the
route and U is the speed of the flow. In our case, the capacity of the routes is the same and the speed is defined in the
scenario parameters.

4. Simulation and Results

In order to evaluate and validate our approach, we will generate a mobility model using the SUMO microscopic
traffic simulator [15]. Then, we integrate this mobility model with the NS-2 simulator [14]. This will allow us to
have the trace files to be analyzed later in which all events are recorded. The experimentation scenarios are done in
an urban environment. Each vehicle defines its own route to reach its destination. The network access and vehicle
entry points are many, and then there are multiple crossings, traffic lights and roundabouts. Road traffics generated
with SUMO manifest itself as a realistic scenario. Therefore, the factors listed above give credibility to our proposed
method. Here is the mobility model of our scenario shown in Figure 3:

Fig. 3: Road topology

1162 Badreddine Cherkaoui et al. / Procedia Computer Science 151 (2019) 1158–1163
B.Cherkaoui and al./ Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000 5

The main parameters of our simulation are indicated in the Table 1:

Table 1: Simulation parameters

Parameters Values
Network Size 650m * 650m
Number of Vehicles 40, 80, 160
Version of the simulator NS-2.35
Speed 10, 15, 20, 25 m/s
Packet Size 1000 bytes
Routing Protocol AODV
Simulation Time 1500 s
Mobility Model Urban Mobility generated
with SUMO 0.25

This generated model is subsequently integrated with the NS-2 simulator to obtain the trace files that contain the
recordings and events of the scenario. After, these files are processed with the Hadoop tool. We handled three
scenarios with the same mobility model, first with 40 vehicles, then 80 and finally 160. Figure 4 shows the state of
the roads for each scenario for the duration of the simulation:

Fig. 4: the state of the roads for the three scenarios

Figure 4 illustrates the state of each route for each scenario. Now, we can easily distinguish the roads that are
experiencing a greater amount of traffic, but we cannot identify when these roads had a greater number of traffic. So
these statistics remain general, now we need even more information and details about a given route.

Fig. 5: Details of the activities on the road R23

Figure 5 depicts the activity of the R23 road as a function of time throughout the simulation. The curve shows the
instantaneous number of vehicles on the road. The congestion interval is also shown on the curve which leads us to
identify the exact congestion time. The history curve of each road can be generated in order to have the status of
each one of them. This leads to creating a dashboard for the desired area to analyze the current status, and
subsequently to provide solutions and develop alternative plans during road congestion. The method we have
proposed is based on the features offered by Big Data tools in order to process the massive data that a vehicular
network generates during a communication. This shows the power of these tools by analyzing this type of network.
 Badreddine Cherkaoui et al. / Procedia Computer Science 151 (2019) 1158–1163 1163
6 B.Cherkaoui and al./ Procedia Computer Science 00 (2018) 000–000

The simulations made are considered a small sample compared to the huge cities. To sum, a city produces metadata
daily. So sooner or later the traditional treatment will show it’s inconvenient and limitations.

5. Conclusion

The potential of Big Data tools is increasing day by day. Massive data management and processing needs this
type of tool. VANETs present a use case where traditional tools show their limitations. In our case, the data
generated by the vehicles are very useful to overcome many problems such as traffic congestion. In this paper, we
have proposed a method for processing vehicular data based on Big Data tools. This method allowed us to detect the
most congested roads in a given area. After analyzing our three scenarios, we were able to see the activity of the
vehicles on this area, as well as the traffic details for each road, which leads us to detect the periods of peaks for
each of them over the simulation time.

References

[1] H. Hasrouny, A. Samhat, C. Bassil, A. Laouiti, VANET security challenges and solutions: A survey, Vehicular
Communications, Volume 7, January 2017, Pages 7-20.
[2] The Association for Safe International Road Travel, www.asirt.org
[3] S. S. Manvi, S. Tangade, A survey on authentication schemes in VANETs for secured communication, Vehicular
Communications, Volume 9, July 2017, Pages 19-30.
[4] Yousef M. Jaradat, Mohammad Masoud, Ismael Jannoud, Hussein Azzawi, Basic Review of Low Rate Denial of Service
Attack on Wired and Wireless Networks, International Journal on Communications Antenna and Propagation (IRECAP)
Vol 6, No 6 · March 2017.
[5] B. Cherkaoui, A. Beni-hssane, M. Erritali, A clustering algorithm for detecting and handling black hole attack in vehicular
ad hoc networks, Europe and MENA Cooperation Advances in Information and Communication Technologies, January
2017, Pages 481-490.
[6] Su M.-Y, Prevention of selective black hole attacks on mobile ad hoc networks through intrusion detection systems.
Computer Communication 34, Pages 107–117 (2011).
[7] S. Tan and K. Kim, Secure Route Discovery for Preventing Black Hole Attacks on AODV-based MANETs, International
Conference on ICT Convergence 2013, Pages 1027- 1032.
[8] R. Khatoun, P. Gu, R. Doulami, L. Khoukhi and A. Serhrouchni, A Reputation System for Detection of Black Hole Attack
in Vehicular Networking, International Conference on Cyber Security of Smart cities, Industrial Control System and
Communications 2015.
[9] C. Panos, C. Ntantogian, S. Malliaros, C. Xenakis, Analyzing, quantifying, and detecting the blackhole attack in
infrastructure-less networks, Computer Networks, Volume 113, 11 February 2017, Pages 94-110.
[10] D. Dave, P. Dave, An Effective Black Hole Attack Detection Mechanism using Permutation Based Acknowledgement in
MANET, 2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI), Pages:
1690 – 1696.
[11] Douglas Montgomery, C. 2008. Introduction to Statistical Quality Control, 6th ed. United States of America: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
[12] Woodall, William H., Control charts based on attribute data: Bibliography and review, Journal of Quality Technology,
Milwaukee29.2 (Apr 1997), Pages 172-183.
[13] The Network Simulator NS-2 version 2.35 http://www.isi.edu/nsnam/ns/index.html
[14] SUMO http://sumo.sourceforge.net/