Context Aware School Zone Warning System in VANETs

School zones are areas close to schools in which crossing vehicles represent a threat to school children. Due to various reasons, drivers might not be aware that they are approaching school zone areas. Utilizing wireless technology in vehicular environments can improve road safety and reduce the number accidents through the development of vehicle safety applications. This paper proposes a context-aware school zone warning system in VANETs. A context aware On-Board Unit architecture is proposed to detect active school zones and provide timely notifications to drivers to safely reduce the speed of their vehicles. The architecture is divided into three layers (i.e. sensing, reasoning, and acting layers). The sensing layer is responsible for collecting the required information to identify active school zones. The reasoning layer identifies the active school zones and sends signals to the application layer, which is responsible for alerting drivers through in-vehicle alarms.