Cooperative traffic information systems support the driver of a car in selecting a route, based on traffic information collected by other cars. We propose to use a peer-to-peer network based on Internet access via cellular networks to distribute traffic information between the participants of such a system. This approach avoids the well-known limitations of VANET-based communication. Since the data maintained in a cooperative traffic information system has a very specific structure, it is particularly profitable—in terms of bandwidth consumption and latency—to tailor the system to this specific application domain instead of re-using generic peer-to-peer approaches. This realization led us to the development of GraphTIS—a peer-to-peer network specifically designed to manage traffic information. In this paper, we derive, step-by-step, the core mechanisms of GraphTIS, starting with a standard peer-to-peer system, outlining a first solution—named PeerTIS—which is based on a modification of this standard DHT, and then presenting GraphTIS, a novel peer-to-peer system that has been specifically designed to support traffic information systems.
