{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,20]],"date-time":"2026-04-20T10:03:59Z","timestamp":1776679439845,"version":"3.51.2"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,13]],"date-time":"2024-08-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1723507200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Guangzhou University postdoctoral startup funding"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Computers"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Load balancing to alleviate network congestion remains a critical challenge in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs). During route and response scheduling, road side units (RSUs) risk being overloaded beyond their calculated capacity. Despite recent advancements like RSU-based load transfer, NP-Hard hierarchical geography routing, RSU-based medium access control (MAC) schemes, simplified clustering, and network activity control, a significant gap persists in employing a load-balancing server for effective traffic management. We propose a server-based network congestion handling mechanism (SBNC) in VANETs to bridge this gap. Our approach clusters RSUs within specified ranges and incorporates dedicated load balancing and network scheduler RSUs to manage route selection and request\u2013response scheduling, thereby balancing RSU loads. We introduce three key algorithms: optimal placement of dedicated RSUs, a scheduling policy for packets\/data\/requests\/responses, and a congestion control algorithm for load balancing. Using the VanetMobiSim library of Network Simulator-2 (NS-2), we evaluate our approach based on residual energy consumption, end-to-end delay, packet delivery ratio (PDR), and control packet overhead. Results indicate substantial improvements in load balancing through our proposed server-based approach.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/computers13080194","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,13]],"date-time":"2024-08-13T10:54:54Z","timestamp":1723546494000},"page":"194","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":10,"title":["Adaptive Load Balancing Approach to Mitigate Network Congestion in VANETS"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Syed Ehsan","family":"Haider","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Technology, The University of Haripur, Haripur 22620, Pakistan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1232-7054","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Muhammad Faizan","family":"Khan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Computer Science and Cyber Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yousaf","family":"Saeed","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Information Technology, The University of Haripur, Haripur 22620, Pakistan"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"74","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2008.4625806","article-title":"Vehicle Ad Hoc networks: Applications and related technical issues","volume":"10","author":"Toor","year":"2008","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2784","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2018.2841901","article-title":"Localization Prediction in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks","volume":"20","author":"Balico","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"828","DOI":"10.1109\/TITS.2019.2893067","article-title":"Advances in Position Based Routing Towards ITS Enabled FoG-Oriented VANET\u2013A Survey","volume":"21","author":"Ullah","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2392","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2019.2911906","article-title":"Vehicular Data Space: The Data Point of View","volume":"21","author":"Rettore","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"33","DOI":"10.1109\/LNET.2020.2970695","article-title":"Age-of-Information-Aware Decentralized Congestion Control in VANETs","volume":"2","author":"Lyamin","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Netw. Lett."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2435","DOI":"10.1109\/TITS.2016.2641903","article-title":"Distributed Classification of Urban Congestion Using VANET","volume":"18","author":"Quintero","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nourani, N., Seno, S.A.H., Etehadi, S.S.S., Hosseinpour, M., and Yaghmaee, M.H. (2023, January 25\u201326). Distributed Traffic Congestion Classification in Intelligent Transportation Systems based on SDN and Fog Computing. Proceedings of the 2023 7th International Conference on Internet of Things and Applications (IoT), Isfahan, Iran.","DOI":"10.1109\/IoT60973.2023.10365360"},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4377","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2018.2876298","article-title":"Joint Load Balancing and Offloading in Vehicular Edge Computing and Networks","volume":"6","author":"Dai","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Internet Things J."},{"key":"ref_9","first-page":"100475","article-title":"AALB: Application Aware Load Balancing Algorithm for Road Side Units","volume":"36","author":"Sahoo","year":"2022","journal-title":"Veh. Commun."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"843","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2014.2371828","article-title":"Bio-Inspired Routing Algorithms Survey for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks","volume":"17","author":"Bitam","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Thapa, S., Sahoo, S.R., Patra, M., and Gupta, A. (November, January 31). A Novel Cost-Aware Load Balancing Algorithm for Road Side Units in Internet of Vehicles. Proceedings of the 2022 18th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM), Thessaloniki, Greece.","DOI":"10.23919\/CNSM55787.2022.9964580"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6959","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2023.3236783","article-title":"Hierarchical Cooperation and Load Balancing for Scalable Autonomous Vehicle Routing in Multi-Access Edge Computing Environment","volume":"72","author":"Wang","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"73","DOI":"10.1109\/TNSM.2022.3208025","article-title":"STALB: A Spatio-Temporal Domain Autonomous Load Balancing Routing Protocol","volume":"20","author":"Song","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Netw. Serv. Manag."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"6471","DOI":"10.1007\/s10586-024-04317-6","article-title":"Improving the quality of real-time data transmission service in VANETS by balancing the load on road side units","volume":"27","author":"Saemi","year":"2024","journal-title":"Cluster Comput."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"657","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2016.2611524","article-title":"A Comparative Survey of VANET Clustering Techniques","volume":"19","author":"Cooper","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9896","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2022.3178129","article-title":"Analysis of Opportunistic Relaying and Load Balancing Gains Through V2V Clustering","volume":"71","author":"Kassir","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"63683","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2024.3393981","article-title":"Enhancing Urban Traffic Management Through Real-Time Anomaly Detection and Load Balancing","volume":"12","author":"Lachgar","year":"2024","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_18","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"953","DOI":"10.1109\/TITS.2022.3166864","article-title":"Deep Active Learning Intrusion Detection and Load Balancing in Software-Defined Vehicular Networks","volume":"24","author":"Ahmed","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2461","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2015.2440374","article-title":"TDMA-Based MAC Protocols for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks: A Survey, Qualitative Analysis, and Open Research Issues","volume":"17","author":"Hadded","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11994","DOI":"10.1109\/TITS.2021.3109154","article-title":"Load Balance Guaranteed Vehicle-to-Vehicle Computation Offloading for Min-Max Fairness in VANETs","volume":"23","author":"Wu","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Intell. Transp. Syst."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3181","DOI":"10.1007\/s11276-024-03729-x","article-title":"A survey on routing and load-balancing mechanisms in software-defined vehicular networks","volume":"30","author":"Malakar","year":"2024","journal-title":"Wirel. Netw."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"271","DOI":"10.23919\/JCC.2021.02.019","article-title":"Proactive load balancing mechanism for fog computing supported by parked vehicles in IoV-SDN","volume":"18","author":"Kadhim","year":"2021","journal-title":"China Commun."},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cao, D., Wu, M., Gu, N., Sherratt, R.S., Ghosh, U., and Sharma, P.K. (2024). Joint Optimization of Computation Offloading and Resource Allocation Considering Task Prioritization in ISAC-Assisted Vehicular Network. IEEE Internet Things J., 1.","DOI":"10.1109\/JIOT.2024.3360962"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"4249","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2022.3143425","article-title":"Joint Parallel Offloading and Load Balancing for Cooperative-MEC Systems With Delay Constraints","volume":"71","author":"Zhang","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1353","DOI":"10.1109\/LCOMM.2022.3162603","article-title":"An MEC-Enabled Framework for Task Offloading and Power Allocation in NOMA Enhanced ABS-Assisted VANETs","volume":"26","author":"He","year":"2022","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Lett."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2092","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2019.2959410","article-title":"Task Offloading in Vehicular Edge Computing Networks: A Load-Balancing Solution","volume":"69","author":"Zhang","year":"2020","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"73774","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2018.2884708","article-title":"A Hierarchical Routing Scheme With Load Balancing in Software Defined Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks","volume":"6","author":"Gao","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ortiz, M.T., Salient, O., Camps-Mur, D., Escrig, J., Nasreddine, J., and P\u00e9rez-Romero, J. (2023, January 20\u201323). On the Application of Q-learning for Mobility Load Balancing in Realistic Vehicular Scenarios. Proceedings of the 2023 IEEE 97th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2023-Spring), Florence, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/VTC2023-Spring57618.2023.10201091"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"103048","DOI":"10.1016\/j.adhoc.2022.103048","article-title":"Adaptively prioritizing candidate forwarding set in opportunistic routing in VANETs","volume":"140","author":"Naderi","year":"2023","journal-title":"Ad Hoc Netw."},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"9320","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2021.3097557","article-title":"EdgeSafe: Dynamic Load Balancing Among Edge Nodes for Provisioning Safety-as-a-Service in Vehicular IoT Applications","volume":"70","author":"Roy","year":"2021","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_31","first-page":"8385854","article-title":"Deep Learning-Based Destination Prediction Scheme by Trajectory Prediction Framework","volume":"2022","author":"Yang","year":"2022","journal-title":"Secur. Commun. Netw."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"67540","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2023.3281302","article-title":"A New Unsupervised Validation Index Model Suitable for Energy-Efficient Clustering Techniques in VANET","volume":"11","author":"Abdulrazzak","year":"2023","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chanal, P.M., Kakkasageri, M.S., Jahagirdar, R.G., and Sataraddi, M.J. (2019, January 18\u201320). Performance Analysis of Ant Colony based Routing Approach for VANETs using VanetMobiSim and NS2. Proceedings of the 2019 11th International Conference on Advanced Computing (ICoAC), Chennai, India.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICoAC48765.2019.246828"},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2199","DOI":"10.3390\/s140202199","article-title":"A Multimetric, Map-Aware Routing Protocol for VANETs in Urban Areas","volume":"14","author":"Igartua","year":"2014","journal-title":"Sensors"},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"908","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2018.2884525","article-title":"V2V Routing in a VANET Based on the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average Model","volume":"68","author":"Sun","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."}],"container-title":["Computers"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-431X\/13\/8\/194\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,10]],"date-time":"2025-10-10T15:36:01Z","timestamp":1760110561000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-431X\/13\/8\/194"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,13]]},"references-count":35,"journal-issue":{"issue":"8","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,8]]}},"alternative-id":["computers13080194"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/computers13080194","relation":{},"ISSN":["2073-431X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2073-431X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2024,8,13]]}}}