A change in perspective: information-centric modeling of inter-vehicle communication

Inter-vehicle communication with the objective to increase safety and efficiency of our transportation network has been studied extensively in the last few years. However, we are still struggling in answering the fundamental question of to which extent can inter-vehicle communication improve our wide-area transportation network that consists of more than several cities?. In this position paper we discuss from a methodological point of view and by analyzing recent trends how the VANET community could move forward with respect to evaluation methodologies. Based on our observations, we argue that the vehicular networking community might need to extend its perspective -- from bits and packets towards information-centric models -- when assessing efficiency gains in large scale scenarios, thereby providing a multi-scale approach as it is done in various disciplines. We further believe that the community should join forces to convert existing results as well as current and upcoming measurements to provide information-centric models of inter-vehicular communication. We finally propose a modeling approach that could serve as a foundation for future joint efforts and which might take us one step closer to the answer of the fundamental question stated above.