RoadSpeak Enabling Voice Chat on Roadways using Vehicular….pdfVIP

RoadSpeak: Enabling Voice Chat on Roadways using Vehicular Social Networks∗ † Stephen Smaldone, Lu Han, Pravin Shankar, and Liviu Iftode Department of Computer Science, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ {smaldone,luhan,spravin,iftode}@ ABSTRACT taken advantage of for mobile social networking, is the daily A great number of people spend one or more hours each day roadway commute. A great number of people, especially in driving between home and the office. These daily roadway densely populated locales, spend one or more hours each day commutes are highly predictable and regular, and provide a driving between home and the office. Since these commutes great opportunity to form virtual mobile communities. How- typically take people over highways and other frequented cor- ever, even though these commuters are already physically pre- ridors, they are highly predicable and regular. Day after day, sent in the same location, they are limited in their ability to the same people travel along the same roadways at the same communicate with each other. This paper presents a frame- time. Therefore, the opportunity exists to form periodic vir- tual mobile communities. We call these virtual communities work for building such communities, which we call Vehicular Social Networks (VSNs), to facilitate better communication Vehicular Social Networks (VSNs). between commuters driving on roadways. As a proof of con- The key property is that roadways, and the VSNs overlaid, cept, we present the design of RoadSpeak, a VSN-based sys- provide a sufficient and regul