Applications of Blockchain and Smart Contracts to Address Challenges of Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mobility

Abstract

Population growth and environmental burden have turned the efforts of cities globally toward smarter and greener mobility. Cooperative and Connected Automated Mobility (CCAM) serves as a concept with the power and potential to help achieve these goals building on technological fields like Internet of Things, computer vision, and distributed computing. However, its implementation is hindered by various challenges covering technical parameters such as performance and reliability in tandem with other issues, such as safety, accountability, and trust. To overcome these issues, new distributed and decentralized approaches like blockchain and smart contracts are needed. This paper identifies a comprehensive inventory of CCAM challenges including technical, social, and ethical challenges. It then describes the most prominent methodologies using blockchain and smart contracts to address them. A comparative analysis of the findings follows, to draw useful conclusions and discuss future directions in CCAM and relevant blockchain applications. The paper contributes to intelligent transportation systems’ research by offering an integrated view of the difficulties in substantiating CCAM and providing insights on the most popular blockchain and smart contract technologies that tackle them.