Transportation Internet: Concepts, Models, and Architectures

Disruptive changes in vehicles and transportation have been triggered by automated, connected, electrified and shared mobility. Autonomous vehicles, like Internet data packets, are transported from one address to another through the road network. The Internet has become a general network transmission paradigm, and the Energy Internet is a successful application of this paradigm to the field of energy. By introducing the Internet paradigm to the field of transportation, this paper is the first to propose the Transportation Internet. Based on the concept of the Transportation Internet, fundamental models, such as the switching, routing, and hierarchical models, are established to form basic theories; new architectures, such as transportation routers and software defined transportation, are proposed to make transportation interconnected and open; system verifications, such as prototype and simulation, are also carried out to prove feasibility and advancement. The Transportation Internet, which is of far-reaching significance in science and industry, has brought systematic breakthroughs in theory, architecture, and technology, explored innovative research directions, and provided an Internet-like solution for the new generation of transportation.