The use of Blockchain technology has recently become widespread. It has emerged as an essential tool in various academic and industrial fields, such as healthcare, transportation, finance, cybersecurity, and supply chain management. It is regarded as a decentralized, trustworthy, secure, transparent, and immutable solution that innovates data sharing and management. This survey aims to provide a systematic review of Blockchain application to intelligent transportation systems in general and the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) in particular. The survey is divided into four main parts. First, the Blockchain technology including its opportunities, relative taxonomies, and applications is introduced; basic cryptography is also discussed. Next, the evolution of Blockchain is presented, starting from the primary phase of pre-Bitcoin (fundamentally characterized by classic cryptography systems), followed by the Blockchain 1.0 phase, (characterized by Bitcoin implementation and common consensus protocols), and finally, the Blockchain 2.0 phase (characterized by the implementation of smart contracts, Ethereum, and Hyperledger). We compared and identified the strengths and limitations of each of these implementations. Then, the state of the art of Blockchain-based IoV solutions (BIoV) is explored by referring to a large and trusted source database from the Scopus data bank. For a well-structured and clear discussion, the reviewed literature is classified according to the research direction and implemented IoV layer. Useful tables, statistics, and analysis are also presented. Finally, the open problems and future directions in BIoV research are summarized.

A sleepy driver is arguably much more dangerous on the road than the one who is speeding as he is a victim of microsleeps. Automotive researchers and manufacturers are trying to curb this problem with several technological solutions that will avert such a crisis. This article focuses on the detection of such micro sleep and drowsiness using neural network-based methodologies. Our previous work in this field involved using machine learning with multi-layer perceptron to detect the same. In this paper, accuracy was increased by utilizing facial landmarks which are detected by the camera and that is passed to a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to classify drowsiness. The achievement with this work is the capability to provide a lightweight alternative to heavier classification models with more than 88% for the category without glasses, more than 85% for the category night without glasses. On average, more than 83% of accuracy was achieved in all categories. Moreover, as for model size, complexity and storage, there is a marked reduction in the new proposed model in comparison to the benchmark model where the maximum size is 75 KB. The proposed CNN based model can be used to build a real-time driver drowsiness detection system for embedded systems and Android devices with high accuracy and ease of use.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) is evolving, one of its rapidly developing components is the transformation of standard Vehicle Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) into the Internet of Vehicles (IoV). Due to the exceptional progress in computation and communication technologies, the IoV has attracted the attention of researchers and commercial companies. Nevertheless, the primary issue regarding the IoV, and in particular to Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I), is establishing secure and instant payments and communications. To respond to this challenge, this work proposes a Blockchain-based solution for establishing secure payment and communication (PSEV) in order to study the use of Blockchain as middle-ware between different participants of intelligent transportation systems. The proposed framework employs Ethereum to develop a solution aimed at facilitating Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications and parking payments. Moreover, the solution includes Android auto and application modules for automating the communication process. It was experimentally tested to assess its computational costs, communication expenses and the real-time aspect (RTA). The results of computational tests revealed that the developed solution is faster and more scalable than the existing solutions.

The concept of smart cities has become prominent in modern metropolises due to the emergence of embedded and connected smart devices, systems, and technologies. They have enabled the connection of every “thing” to the Internet. Therefore, in the upcoming era of the Internet of Things, the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) will play a crucial role in newly developed smart cities. The IoV has the potential to solve various traffic and road safety problems effectively in order to prevent fatal crashes. However, a particular challenge in the IoV, especially in Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communications, is to ensure fast, secure transmission and accurate recording of the data. In order to overcome these challenges, this work is adapting Blockchain technology for real time application (RTA) to solve Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications problems. Therefore, the main novelty of this paper is to develop a Blockchain-based IoT system in order to establish secure communication and create an entirely decentralized cloud computing platform. Moreover, the authors qualitatively tested the performance and resilience of the proposed system against common security attacks. Computational tests showed that the proposed solution solved the main challenges of Vehicle-to-X (V2X) communications such as security, centralization, and lack of privacy. In addition, it guaranteed an easy data exchange between different actors of intelligent transportation systems.

The Electronic Health Records (EHR) sharing system is the state of art for delivering healthcare. The tools within the system can predict outcomes during the patient's lifetime, monitor how effective are treatments, track therapies and detect human errors. For main industry stakeholders, the priority is to ensure integrity and interoperability across the care continuum. Achieving this priority is still challenging considering an enormous amount of EHR data, security issues, and heterogeneity of healthcare information systems. To overcome these challenges, this work proposes BiiMED: a Blockchain framework for Enhancing Data Interoperability and Integrity regarding EHR-sharing. The proposed solutions include an access management system allowing the exchange of EHRs between different medical providers and a decentralized Trusted Third Party Auditor (TTPA) for ensuring data integrity. This work establishes a foundation for further research on dynamic data interoperability and integrity verification in a fully decentralized environment.