IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology
Special Section: Telematics Advances for Vehicular Communication Networks

Wireless communication for intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) is a promising technology to improve driving safety, reduce traffic congestion and support information services in vehicles. A new era of vehicular technology that includes vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications is approaching. During recent ITS development, transportation telematics techniques have exhibited much progress, e.g., interaction between automobiles and the infrastructure for delivering services such as road-side assistance, automatic crash notification, concierge assistance and vehicle condition reports. A number of IEEE 802.11p-like equipment prototypes have been built, and several technical reports based on field trials have demonstrated the lack of cutting-edge techniques to improve system performance. Technology and applications for ITSs and telematics design are rapidly emerging, and there is a critical need to bring together professional researchers, engineers, academia, industry, standard committees, the private and public sectors to exchange new ideas. This special section aims to spur research progress by serving as a forum in which both academia and industry can share experiences and report original work regarding all aspects of vehicular communication, e.g., vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), information dissemination, road safety, ITS and emergency services. Our primary goal is to promote meaningful research in the cross-layered design of architectures, algorithms and applications for inter-vehicle communication environments. This special section will also address numerous significant standardization efforts (IEEE 802.11p, p1609, TIA TR48, etc.) and some alternatives or improved systems.

Topics of Interest:
 Data-collection, organization and dissemination methods:
o Floating vehicles
o Traffic and flow modelling and analysis
o Remote service provisioning and over-the-air upgrading technology
o Data replication, caching and pre-fetching protocols
 V2V and V2I communications:
o Network protocols including MAC, routing, addressing, multicast, TCP protocols and end-to-end quality of service, resource management, security and privacy
o Design with multiple wireless data links (802.11p, WiMAX, WiFi, cell phone, GPS)
o Mobility or handover technology
o System-level, board-level and chip-level electronics
o PHY issues: channel measurement, channel modelling, channel estimation, antenna arrangement, pilot arrangement, etc.
 New ITS/Telematics applications:
o Safety and driver-assistance applications
o Congestion control by cooperative data analysis
o Reduction of fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emission
 Ongoing ITS/Telematics activities:
o Results from large-scale experimental systems, test beds and field trials
o Hardware implementation and infrastructure deployment
o Deployment strategies and predictions
o Standardization and development of VANETs: efforts and problems on 802.11p WAVE, 802.11s MESH, DSRC, etc.

Paper Submission:
Authors should follow the IEEE TVT manuscript format and submission procedure which can be found at the IEEE TVT home page http://transactions.vtsociety.org/ under Information for Authors. Prospective authors should submit a PDF version of their complete manuscript via the journal online paper submission system at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tvt-ieee

Important Dates:
 Manuscript Submission Due: January 31, 2011
 Notification Letter Sent: April 15, 2011
 Revision Due: May 31, 2011
 Acceptance Notification: July 31, 2011
 Final Manuscript Due: August 31, 2011

Guest Editors:
- Jia-Chin Lin, Department of Communication Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan
- Christoph Mecklenbrauker, Institute of Communications and Radio-Frequency Engineering, Vienna University of Technology, Austria
- Alexey Vinel, Tampere University of Technology, Finland
- Tao Zhang, Emerging Technologies and Services Research, Telcordia Technologies, Inc., USA
- Spyridon Vassilaras, Athens Information Technology Center for Research and Graduate Education, Greece
- Kuen-Rong Lo, Telecommunication Laboratories, Chunghwa Telecom Co., Ltd., Taiwan