Recent wireless communication technologies are envisioned as an innovative alternative to solve transportation problems. On ad hoc networks, as a wireless communication technology, nodes can communicate data without any infrastructure. In particular, vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), a specific ad hoc network applied to vehicles, enable vehicles equipped with a communication device to form decentralized traffic information systems in which vehicles share traffic information they experienced. This study investigated traffic information dissemination in a VANET-based traffic information system. For this study, an integrated transportation and communications simulation framework was developed, and experiments were conducted with real highway networks and traffic demands. The results showed that it took 3 minutes in the low traffic density situations (10 vehicle/lane.km) and 43 seconds in the high traffic density condition (40 vehicle/lane.km) to deliver traffic information of 5km away with 10% market penetration rate. In uncongested traffic conditions, information seems to be disseminated via equipped vehicles in the opposite direction. In congested traffic conditions, the sufficient availability of equipped vehicles traveling in the same direction reduces the chance to use vehicles in the opposing direction even though it is still possible.