Guest Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue on Dependable Wireless Vehicular Communications for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
Over the past couple of decades, transportation systems have begun to receive widespread attention from the scientific community and emerged toward Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Effective vehicular connectivity techniques can significantly enhance efficiency of travel, reduce traffic incidents and improve safety, and alleviate the impact of congestion; devising the ITS experience. Furthermore, during the past decades, the volume and density of vehicles increased significantly, especially the road traffic; this lead to a dramatic increase in the number of accidents and congestion, with negative impacts on the economy, environment, and quality of people’s lives. In particular, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), road traffic injuries are estimated to be the leading cause of death for young people aged 15–29 and the ninth cause of death worldwide in 2015. The enabling communication technologies are intended to realize the frameworks that will spur an array of applications and use cases in the domain of road safety, traffic efficiency, and driver’s assistance. Although these applications will allow the dissemination and gathering of useful information among vehicles and between transportation infrastructure and vehicles in pursuance of assisting drivers to travel safely and comfortably, much effort is required to implement these practices for the success of these applications.