Improving Emergency Response: An In-Depth Analysis of an ITS-G5 Messaging Strategy for Bus Blockage Emergencies at Level Crossings

The Intelligent Transportation System protocol stack has revolutionized traffic efficiency and road safety applications in vehicular environments. This is due to the incorporation of the 802.11p standard in the 5.9 GHz band. This study introduces a novel architecture for vehicular communications. It employs Internet Protocol version 4 multicast over the 5.9 GHz band allocated for Intelligent Transportation Systems. The frequency band was designated by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Our proposed architecture addresses challenges in a specific urban use case. The use case involves a Level Crossing in Bordeaux. It focuses on the broadcast of Cooperative Awareness Message (CAM) and Decentralized Environmental Notification Message (DENM) to enhance road-user safety. To prevent accidents, we present an algorithm for CAM and DENM dissemination that ensures timely alerts for sudden vehicle blockage emergencies. Moreover, we introduce a comprehensive and optimized train braking strategy to further minimize accident risks. This strategy aims to provide efficient and timely train deceleration, allowing sufficient time for road users to clear the Level Crossing and mitigating the potential risk for collisions. We analyze End-to-End delay and Packet Reception Ratio to gauge our system’s performance. We also compare our edge-server-based architecture with cloud-based alternatives, showcasing improved latency and Packet Loss Rate in our approach. The obtained results illustrate the effectiveness of our edge-server-based architecture in the context of Intelligent Transportation Systems, particularly utilizing the 5.9 GHz band technology. The findings of this study provide a foundation for future deployments and improvements in urban environments, fostering safer and more reliable transportation systems.