Emergency Vehicle Navigation in Connected Autonomous Systems Using Enhanced Traffic Management System

Autonomous vehicle (AV) usage has become predominant in the rapidly evolving landscape of urban transportation. Integrating AVs and non-AVs in the existing traffic infrastructure has significantly increased the complexity of traffic patterns. This research work primes the enhanced Traffic Management System (e-TMS), a solution implemented to expedite emergency vehicle (EV) travel in the context of connected AVs (CAVs) and ensured secured communication employing public key infrastructure (PKI) among the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) framework. When an EV is detected, the IoV system verifies the EV’s signal using PKI, ensuring its authenticity and integrity by encrypting the communication between the EV and road side units (RSUs). Further, the e-TMS activates the platooning process where CAVs in the EV’s lane shift to the adjacent lanes and dynamically form platoons to create a dedicated lane for the EV. To further optimize the platooning process, an adaptive smart leader selection (ASLS) algorithm is employed to select a leader vehicle spontaneously among the AVs based on the proximity to the EV, communication reliability, and lane position. Radio Detection and Ranging devices aid this platooning process by providing distance and target velocity, which are needed to maintain the required distance between the AVs and ensure safe platoon formation. The e-TMS enhances EV response times and overall traffic flow efficiency and resulted in 27.8% increase in mean speed compared to the traditional methods.