Analysis of Vehicular Data Communication in the case of the Cotopaxi Volcano eruption

A foreseeable risk in the case of a volcano eruption, as is the case of the Cotopaxi volcano, is a significant increase of vehicular traffic on routes destined to attend to this emergency, constituting a challenge for vehicular communications. Several parameters of vehicle-to-infrastructure and vehicle-to-vehicle communication are analyzed in this work using simulation tools such as georeferenced maps, microscopic traffic, radio propagation, and network simulators for a scenario with considerable vehicular density. Factors such as high vehicular density, placement of road-side units, and special types of intersections as roundabouts have significant effects on vehicular communication. The radio propagation simulation shows accurate results of path gain and Doppler spread. In addition, network simulation under IEEE 802.11p protocol shows a better performance of UDP than TCP in terms of delay time and jitter whereas TCP outperforms UDP in terms of throughput.