On the road to smart cities: Where smart vehicles stand and where they're going

IMAGE: Researchers explore the past, present, and future of smart vehicles and what their integration with smart cities would take. Central to any technological progress is the enrichment of human life. The internet and wireless connectivity have done that by allowing not only virtually anyone anywhere to connect real time, but by making possible connections between humans and a range of intelligent devices both indoors and outdoors, putting smart cities on the horizon. One key aspect of realizing smart cities is "smart vehicles", the latest development in intelligent transportation systems (ITS), which involve the integration of communication, mapping, positioning, network, and sensor technologies to ensure cooperative, efficient, intelligent, safe, and economical transportation. For decades, research on bringing to the streets smart vehicles that operate successfully as part of smart city infrastructure has focused on improving computing paradigms for vehicular network connectivity.