Copyright © 2008 Ioannis Broustis and Michalis Faloutsos. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Vehicular networks are sets of surface transportation systems that have the ability to communicate with each other. There are several possible network architectures to organize their in-vehicle computing systems. Potential schemes may include vehicle-to-vehicle ad hoc networks, wired backbone with wireless last hops, or hybrid architectures using vehicle-to-vehicle communications to augment roadside communication infrastructures. Some special properties of these networks, such as high mobility, network partitioning, and constrained topology, differentiate them from other types of wireless networks. We provide an in-depth discussion on the important studies related to architectural design and routing for such networks. Moreover, we discuss the major security concerns appearing in vehicular networks.