An important use case for Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) is its application in the warning systems of emergency vehicles (EV). VANET-based vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication can be used to exchange important data and information between traffic lights and EVs, by means of transceivers at both ends. This communication helps in reducing the risks of accidents and also saves valuable time through an optimized orchestration of the traffic lights. This paper outlines the system design of an EV warning system that makes use of V2I communication. The system has been extensively studied in state-of-the-art simulators, such as SUMO and OMNeT++, in a huge variety of scenarios, where metrics for both time and safety have been collected. The results show that SafeSmart is highly effective in reducing trip times as well as increasing the overall safety of EVs in emergency scenarios. © 2013 IEEE.