Quantum-Enhanced ITS Leveraging Consumer Devices for Real-Time Urban Traffic Optimization in Smart Cities

This paper presents a novel Quantum-Integrated Intelligent Transportation System (Q-ITS) framework that integrates quantum communication into vehicular networks for smart cities. By incorporating quantum processors and entanglement-based key distribution techniques into vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication, vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication, and edge servers, we establish a secure, low-latency framework for informed decision-making. The system utilized Q-ITS optimization, combining Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) with federated vehicular learning to enable safe, privacy-preserving coordination among distributed network participants. Smartphones and other connected devices used by consumers enable the dynamic gathering of traffic information, and customized route modifications are possible in the Q-ITS system ecosystem. The simulation results on a synthetic urban topology demonstrate that the proposed approach reduces communication overhead by 37.4%, decreases average decision latency by 42.1%, and lowers the system-wide congestion index by 23.9% compared to traditional methods. Additionally, Q-ITS routing attains a packet delivery success rate of 98.2% under dynamic vehicular traffic conditions. The Q-ITS also shows 61.3% gain in entropic stability and a 2.8 times faster convergence.