Abstract—This paper has three major contributions. First, a
vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET)-based A* (VBA*) route
planning algorithm is proposed to calculate the route with the
shortest travelling time or the least oil consumption, depending
on two real-time traffic information sources. The first one is
the recorded traffic information of the road segment that the
vehicle has passed through. This traffic information is further
exchanged between vehicles when they enter the transmission
range of IEEE 802.11p wireless link in the VANET. The
second one is the traffic information provided by Google Maps.
Then, a GPS navigation app is implemented on the Android
platform to realize the VBA* route planning algorithm. Finally,
simulations for six route planning algorithms are executed by
the well-known VANET simulator, i.e., The ONE. In summary,
VBA* achieves significant reductions on both the average
travelling time and oil consumption of the planned route, as
compared to traditional route planning algorithms.