TraNS: Realistic Joint Traffic and Network Simulator for VANETs

Realistic simulation is a necessary tool for the proper evaluation of newly developed protocols for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). Several recent efforts focus on achieving this goal. Yet, to this date, none of the proposed solutions fulfill all the requirements of the VANET environment. This is so mainly because road traffic and communication network simulators evolve in disjoint research communities. We are developing TraNS, an open-source simulation environment, as a step towards bridging this gap. This short paper describes the TraNS architecture and our ongoing development efforts.