This paper evaluates the suitability of blockchain technology for the Article 6.2 carbon market mechanism of the Paris Agreement. The bottom-up approach of the Paris Agreement causes challenges to the robust accounting of mitigation outcomes and information asymmetry, both of which result from a high number of heterogeneous emission accounting systems. Blockchain is an innovative technology that can act as an aggregation platform for these fragmented systems while enhancing transparency and automating accounting processes. However, this new technology is not a panacea for all problems, and the trade-offs of applying blockchain technology need to be assessed case by case. We create and apply an eight-step decision framework for testing the applicability of the technology for the Paris Agreement Article 6.2 carbon market mechanism. The analysis shows that, under current mechanism specifications, a blockchain application can enhance transparency and increase automation, thereby eliminating information asymmetry. We outline a system architecture that allows the linking of the heterogeneous systems, the integration of an Article 6.2 exchange mechanism, and the progress tracking of climate targets. This blockchain architecture offers national Parties the opportunity to co-create a decentralised system in line with the bottom-up ethos of the Paris Agreement.
Byeong-Gyu Jeong, Taek-Young Youn, Nam-Su Jho, Sang Uk Shin
Currently, "connected cars" are being actively designed over smart cars and autonomous cars, to establish a two-way communication network between the vehicle and all infrastructure. Additionally, because vehicle black boxes are becoming more common, specific processes for secure and efficient data sharing and transaction via vehicle networks must be developed. In this paper, we propose a Blockchain-based vehicle data marketplace platform model, along with a data sharing scheme, using Blockchain-based data-owner-based attribute-based encryption (DO-ABE). The proposed model achieves the basic requirements such as data confidentiality, integrity, and privacy. The proposed system securely and effectively handles large-capacity and privacy-sensitive black box video data by storing the metadata on Blockchain (on-chain) and encrypted raw data on off-chain (external) storage, and adopting consortium Blockchain. Furthermore, the data owners of the proposed model can control their own data by applying the Blockchain-based DO-ABE and owner-defined access control lists.
Emanuel Vieira, Paulo Bartolomeu, Seyed M. Hosseini, Joaquim Ferreira
The extensive use of smartphones combined with the rise in the Internet of Things adoption has fostered the emergence of several use-cases to provide added comfort and peace of mind in our everyday life. Public transportation payment in large cities, where frequent commuters and generic users often spend a significant amount of time buying and validating tickets, can become a cumbersome process. This paper presents the design and implementation of a seamless payment system named IOTApass, which handles payments through the usage of a smartphone and a distributed ledger technology to avoid the limitations of centralized payment solutions. The IOTApass enables a user to seamlessly pay for public transports using a smartphone App without explicit (user) interface interactions, thus reducing payment complexity. Besides describing the architecture, operation, and implementation of IOTApass, the paper documents its experimental validation and confirms its feasibility.
Paolo Bellavista, Marco Cilloni, Giuseppe Modica, Rebecca Montanari · 6 authors
Nowadays, the exploitation of distributed ledger technology (DLT) is increasing among different domains and use cases. Not only within the context of cryptocurrencies, DLT could help the cooperation among untrusted parties in a wide variety of application scenarios. In particular, crowdsensing platforms can benefit from DLT because they need to federate systems belonging to different organizations to share end-user profiles, finally free to move within different domains, maintaining their identity. In this paper, we propose an edge-based distributed ledger architecture for supporting decentralised incentives in a specific mobile crowdsensing paltform called ParticipAct. To motivate the choice we describe two different deployments of ParticipAct, one based on a classical client-server architecture and the other one based on an edge-based model, and we highlight their pro and cons. In particular, our more notable findings rely on an approach based on edge computing and highlight how the three-tier solution improves the scalability, the performance, the security and the fault tolerance of the infrastructure responsible for the management of the federation among untrusted crowdsensing platforms.
With ever increasing people's awareness of low carbon and environmental protection, electric vehicles are gradually gaining wide popularity. However, the driving endurance of the electric vehicle is the biggest shortage that hinders the fully acceptance of this new vehicle technology. To deal with this shortage, this paper proposed a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) electricity trading scheme based on Bayesian game pricing in blockchain-enabled Internet of vehicles (BIoV). Specifically, the Bayesian game is adopted for pricing in the distributed BIoV with incomplete information sharing. The optimal pricing under the linear strategic equilibrium has been obtained which maximizes the utilities of both sides of electricity transaction. The transaction volume is determined from the formulated convex problem that maximizes the social welfare. Then, the pricing game is implemented by the dedicated smart contract. Blockchain guarantees its trustworthiness, security, and reliability. Finally, the experimental results show that referring to the benchmark of static game with complete information, the proposed Bayesian game with incomplete information can achieve approximate satisfaction of users. The degree of approximation can reach to 98% when the pricing ranges of buyers and sellers are close. Moreover, the proposed scheme has great advantages over the static game with complete information in terms of communication overhead and timeliness in the decentralized IoVs.
Yuhong Li, Kun Ouyang, Nanxuan Li, Rahim Rahmani · 6 authors
Being able to obtain various environmental and driving data from vehicles is becoming more and more important for current and future intelligent transportation systems (ITSs) to operate efficiently and economically. However, the limitations of privacy protection and security of the current ITSs are hindering users and vehicles from providing data. In this paper, we propose a new ITS architecture by using blockchain technology solving the privacy protection and security problems, and promoting users and vehicles to provide data to ITSs. The proposed architecture uses blockchain as a trust infrastructure to protect users' privacy and provide trustworthy services to users. It is also compatible with the legacy ITS infrastructure and services. In addition, the hierarchical organization of chains enables the scalability of the system, and the use of smart contracts provides a flexible way for introducing new services in the ITS. The proposed architecture is demonstrated by a proof of concept implementation based on Ethereum. The test results show that the proposed architecture is feasible.
Friederike Rühmann, Sai Aashirvad Konda, Paul Horrocks, Nina Taka
The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) demands unprecedented resources and efforts. Remittances as one of the largest development finance flows are an important source of income for millions of households in developing countries and offer tremendous potential to contribute towards the achievement of Agenda 2030. However, the high cost of sending remittances limits their full potential. The global average cost of sending USD 200 is 6.9% of the remittance. SDG 10 C aims to reduce the cost to less than 3% and to eliminate remittance corridors with cost higher than 5% by 2030. Blockchain technology promises to disintermediate banks, transform the financial landscape and drastically reduce the cost of cross-border transactions, yet there is a need for further evidence on this topic. The OECD Development Co-operation Directorate (DCD) has developed this paper to provide an overview of diverse perspectives on the intersection of blockchain technology and remittances by exploring the opportunities and challenges of this technology for reducing the cost of remittances. The paper identifies several limitations, such as data privacy risks, regulatory uncertainty and last-mile delivery, among others, while investigating whether blockchain technology is the solution to reduce the cost of remittances.
Blockchain, as an emerging technology and a disruptive innovation, has attracted attention from both academia and industry. However, there are many potential risks associated with it, such as the technical risk, the legal risk and the privacy risk. A comprehensive risk analysis is crucial for cost-effective deployment of blockchain technology. Important adoption decisions, including when to deploy blockchain, how to plan the investment, how to transfer current businesses onto blockchain, and how to price the blockchain service depend on this risk analysis. Yet very little study exists concerning the blockchain adoption planning with risks analysis. This research presents a cost-and-risk analysis framework and an adoption planning method for the case of blockchain application in carbon trading. Design requirements implied by the analysis are inferred and the architecture of a novel hybrid blockchain system is proposed. The system leverages the advantages of blockchain technology and incorporates institutional risk control framework. The optimal adoption strategy of this system is derived through modelling of users’ and the organizer’s behavior.
Companies trying to build new solutions using blockchain are confronted with\na plethora of available concurrent technologies that have many control knobs\nwhich require fine-tuning by experts. Exiting studies that build decision\nmodels for blockchain adoption or selection lack an automated way to use\nnon-functional requirements to provide recommendations. In this paper, we build\na knowledge base for blockchain solutions by analyzing whitepapers and studies,\nbut also our benchmark results performed in a controlled environment. Then, we\nimplement a Multi-Criterion Decision Analysis method to determine the most\nsuitable blockchain solution from companies provided requirements and\npreferences. Finally, we illustrate our approach by running the decision\nprocess on a realistic supply-chain use case. This paper provides a rationale\nfor blockchain deployment choices. While still limited in scope, we plan to\ninclude more blockchain alternative and more flexible requirements inputs in\nfuture work.\n
This study presents conceptual research designed to assess how the sharing economy concept can be leveraged to increase the participation of commercial organisations, such as retailers and transporters, in disaster relief operations. Drawing on social exchange theory, the academic literature on the sharing economy and blockchain, as well as existing resource-sharing practices in commercial and humanitarian logistics, the study develops a theoretical framework for analysing the structure, benefits, and prerequisites of a logistics-sharing system in emergency response. In addition, it proposes to utilise the blockchain distributed ledger technology-a shared data platform that enables authenticated communication and the widespread sharing of real-time information-to facilitate interactions and enhance trust between emergency responders and commercial organisations. It is argued that using commercial logistics resources, including emergency supplies, transport capacity, and storage space, has the potential to improve the mobilisation and deployment of urgently needed relief items and augment the flexibility of emergency response.
Blockchain – also known as distributed ledger – technology is set to revolutionise data and business process management and transactions. Blockchain adoption, pioneered initially as a financial tec...
The fast penetration of Intelligent Connected Vehicles (ICVs) has become the primary growth engine of the automotive industry in recent years. Urban vehicular network consisting of ICVs is evolving towards a distributed intelligent platform for pervasive sensing, connecting and computing in Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) and smart cities. In this paper, we propose that parked vehicles (PVs) could be exploited for environment perception and model inference. We describe the system architecture and its typical application scenarios of distributed environment perception for city roads, parking lots, as well as for commercial and residential buildings. PVs are motivated to assist in deep learning model inference for the captured image data in such applications. Regarding the diversity of PVs in deep learning capability, a differential incentive mechanism is elaborately designed based on contract theory to emulate PVsparticipation. The experiment on the dataset of German Traffic Sign Recognition Benchmark is conducted to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.
The increase of the number of electric vehicles leads to serious valley imbalance in the power grid. In order to achieve peak cutting and valley filling, according to the energy storage characteristics of electric vehicles, this paper proposes an electric vehicle group (EVG) energy trading method based on smart contract and double auction matching mechanism, and constructs the electric energy transaction process of the electric vehicle and electric vehicle in the electric vehicle group under the unbalanced load of the power grid. Through deploying the double auction matching algorithm to the smart contract, the automatic execution of matching transaction and automatic clearing of transaction cost are realized, which saves the economic cost of manual matching mode. In addition, the multi-stage quotation method proposed greatly improves the number of transactions. The simulation experiment based on Monte Carlo simulation shows that the power transaction method can not only effectively alleviate the valley problem of power grid load, achieve the effect of reducing and raising Valley, but also can improve the transaction efficiency.
The confluence of Internet of Things(IoT) , Blockchain(BC) and Artificial Intelligence(AI) acts as a key accelerator for enabling Machine Economy. To be ready for future businesses these technologies needs to be adapted by extending the IoT capabilities to Economy of Things (EoT) capabilities. In this paper we focus on one such implementation experience for Smart Toll Transaction application in the domain of mobility. Our paper showcases a possible solution by leveraging negotiations, decision making, distributed learning capabilities at the devices level using AI-enabled Multi-Agent Systems and the real-time smart contracts between the Cars and Tolls using Blockchain. This solution also showcases the monetization of real time data coming from various IoT devices which are part of vehicles and infrastructure. While blockchain secures the privacy of the participants it also acts as an economic transactional layer and governance layer between the devices in the networ
The Internet of Things (IoT) suffers from various security vulnerabilities. The use of blockchain technology can help resolve these vulnerabilities, but some practical problems in terms of scalability continue to hinder the adaption of blockchain for application in the IoT. The directed acyclic graph (DAG)-based Tangle model proposed by the IOTA Foundation aims to avoid transaction fees by employing a different protocol from that used in the blockchain. This model uses the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to update a distributed ledger. However, concerns about centralization by the coordinator nodes remain. Additionally, the economic incentive to choose the algorithm is insufficient. The present study proposes a light and efficient distributed ledger update algorithm that regards only the subtangle of each step by considering the Bayesian inference. Experimental results have confirmed that the performance of the proposed methodology is similar to that of the existing methodology, and the proposed methodology enables a faster computation time. It also provides the same resistance to possible attacks, and for the same reasons, as does the MCMC algorithm.
This paper examines the benefits and constraints of applying blockchain technology for the Paris Agreement carbon market mechanism and develops a list of technical requirements and soft factors as selection criteria to test the feasibility of two different blockchain platforms. The carbon market mechanism, as outlined in Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, can accelerate climate action by enabling cooperation between national Parties. However, in the past, carbon markets were limited by several constraints. Our research investigates these constraints and translates them into selection criteria to design a blockchain platform to overcome these past limitations. The developed selection criteria and assumptions developed in this paper provide an orientation for blockchain assessments. Using the selection criteria, we examine the feasibility of two distinct blockchains, Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, for the specific use case of Article 6.2. These two blockchain systems represent contrary forms of design and governance; Ethereum constitutes a public and permissionless blockchain governance system, while Hyperledger Fabric represents a private and permissioned governance system. Our results show that both blockchain systems can address present carbon market constraints by enhancing market transparency, increasing process automation, and preventing double counting. The final selection and blockchain system implementation will first be possible, when the Article 6 negotiations are concluded, and governance preferences of national Parties are established. Our paper informs about the viability of different blockchain systems, offers insights into governance options, and provides a valuable framework for a concrete blockchain selection in the future.
To promote coordinated development of electric vehicles (EVs) and power grid under open power selling, a bidding mechanism using blockchain smart contract technology was proposed. By demand respone management (DRM) on and off the blockchain, based on different driving characteristics of EV subgroups, various charging–discharging demands and constraints were fully considered between EV user subgroups and agent. Purchase–sale transaction relationship and unit commitment plan were fully considered between the EV agent and power dispatching center under economic dispatching. Aiming at the lowest power purchase cost of EV users, the highest profit of EV agent and the lowest cost of power economic dispatching, smart contract models with optimal benefits were established among the three. The smart contract models were solved by combining the internal and external optimization relationship of particle swarm and genetic algorithms. The charging–discharging price was optimized by DRM to realize the reasonable allocation of charging–discharging resources of EVs. An example analysis shows that this bidding mechanism can achieve peak–cutting and valley–filling for power load. At the same time, it can effectively protect the benefits of EV users, agent, and power dispatching center. This result can provide a reference for the application of smart contract in bidding of EVs to the power grid.
Vittorio Astarita, Vincenzo Pasquale Giofrè, Giuseppe Guido, Alessandro Vitale
This paper intends to present some ideas for the implementation of cooperative ITS systems based on the Blockchain Technology (BT) concept. Blockchain technology has been recently introduced and, in this paper, we discuss a system that is based on a dedicated blockchain, able to involve both drivers and city administrations in the adoption of promising and innovative technologies that will create cooperation among connected vehicles. The proposed blockchain-based system can allow city administrators to reward drivers when they are willing to share travel data. The system manages in a special way the creation of new coins which are assigned to drivers and institutions participating actively in the system. Moreover, the system allows keeping a complete track of all transactions and interactions between drivers and city management on a completely open and shared platform. The main idea is to combine connected vehicles with BT to promote Cooperative ITS use and a better use of infrastructures.
The vehicle information in used-car transactions is always asymmetric and disputes always happen in China. In order to reduce such disputes caused by the lack of transparency in a transaction, Blockchain technology is adopted to construct a trust mechanism for vehicle information storage and sharing in a transparent manner. In this work, a Blockchain-based vehicle history storing and tracking service, named BCVehis, is proposed. BCVehis allows vehicle owners, vehicle authority, mechanic workshops, insurance brokers and other related individuals/organizations to upload vehicle historical records via simple manners (i.e. mobile app or application programming interfaces). The system provides trustworthy vehicle history to used-car dealers, potential buyers, and other business-related parties. The design rationale and functional implementation of the BCVehis are introduced, and the increased deal volume in a local used-car dealer X is presented, which integrated BCVehis to its online dealing system.
Godwin C. Okwuibe, Zeguang Li, Thomas Brenner, Ole Langniß
The increase in development of electric vehicle(EV) will have a strong impact on the power distribution grid if adequate care is not taken on the high power demand required for charging EV. Consequently, there is need to create a platform to enable charging point operators to effectively manage the EV user’s charging requests and ensure that there charging needs are satisfied while not exceeding the distribution grid capacity. If this is not done, there is no doubt that in few a years, EV owners will be faced with the problems of unavailability of charging stations and congestion in grid sequel to simultaneous charging of many EV’s. This work proposes a smart EV charging infrastructure based on a blockchain platform. With the charging demand (kWh) and maximum duration of the charging event provided by the EV user, the EV load flexibility is determined and utilized through smart charging to achieve a stable grid. EV owners and charging stations are linked through the platform thereby reducing the actors in EV charging ecosystem from six to four. Flexibility (power and time) in charging of EV is traded within the blockchain platform. By this, additional investors will be attracted into the business of EV charging station and through flexible offers, EV loads are shifted from the peak load hours. Consequently, the simulations shows that the acceptance rate of EV users increased by more than 50% when our smart charging system was adopted compared to the normal charging scenario.
With the development and expansion of smart grid systems, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) has become a new type of energy interaction based on Internet of Electric Vehicles (IoEVs). By leveraging the charging/discharging capabilities of EVs, V2G can be implemented in smart grid to enable intelligent energy transactions and reduce the unbalance of supply and demand. However, the implementation of interaction between the existing V2G technology and IoEVs faces the problems of high-complexity energy transaction management, insufficient computing capability, poor scalability, and lack of incentive mechanisms. The three-tier bi-directional energy transaction management strategies based on game and contract theory have been proposed. Firstly, the optimal pricing and EV discharging strategy is obtained based on the non-cooperative Stackelberg game and the energy-price equilibrium. Secondly, in order to optimize the utility of EAG, the information asymmetry incentive mechanism based on contract theory is proposed. This mechanism can effectively stimulate EVs to contribute to V2G energy transaction and further improve social benefits considering the energy transmission loss and battery life cycle degradation. To reduce the communication as well as processing latency and improve the efficiency of energy transaction management, edge computing has been incorporated. Simulation results show that the performance of the proposed scheme significantly outperforms other existing schemes under various scenarios.
Toqeer Ali Syed, Muhammad Shoaib Siddique, Adnan Nadeem, Ali Alzahrani · 6 authors
Transactions related to vehicles include manufacturing, buying, selling, paying insurance(takaful), obtaining regular inspection, leasing a vehicle from banks, getting in an accident, engaging in a traffic violation, calculating price predictions and renting a vehicle. Many people perform transactions related to vehicles in their daily life; transportation authorities also perform vehicle transactions as part of managing vehicle fleets. But tracking these transactions is a challenging task. There are countrywide solutions that uses centralized systems. However, these solutions have problems with trust management, transparency, and access control. Therefore, we believe there is still room for integrated automation of various vehicle-related transactions. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based framework for vehicle tracking that incorporates the mentioned features. Moreover, blockchain is customized to enable usage control for additional transactions, such as inspection, renting and islamic insurance. The usage control model is integrated with IoT devices to continuously monitor the vehicles for certain conditions and remotely revoke access if needed. The complete transaction set is recorded over an immutable ledger that provides trust, transparency and a complete history of record. In this paper, we also presents a prototype implementation of a permissioned blockchain, which will be made available under the GNUv3 General Public License. Performance analysis is performed on the newly proposed framework implementation over the permissioned blockchain to measure its adoption and suitability.
Background: Due to the rising popularity of autonomous unmanned vehicles, and the lack of well-defined rules to follow, a solution is needed when the physical space is crowded to a point where it becomes a hazard. Partitioning space discretely is currently done in some cases, allowing vehicles to reserve partitions to operate within. This idea is expanded upon to ultimately propose a blockchain-based solution to the inefficiency of safety margins. Objectives: The main objective was to explore whether a blockchain-based system can be used by vehicles to automatically reserve the volumes of space they need for a limited time. The solution to congestion becomes a method for vehicles to communicate between each other to exchange the remainder of their reservations once they are no longer needed, even while disconnected from the main blockchain network, in exchange for the same currency used to reserve the volumes. Methods: An Ethereum private blockchain network is set up, and a smart contract is developed and deployed onto this blockchain. An emulation program used the smart contract functions to reserve and exchange volumes to evaluate the functionality, several isolated tests evaluated the network performance, and aspects that could not be tested were theoretically analyzed. Results: The system functions as intended, although a level of trust is required during exchanges. There is no risk of two vehicles reserving the same volume at the same time. The results indicate that some performance aspects will be affected by an increasing number of users, although the entire effect can be placed on synchronization time if the network parameters are adjusted. This likely affects the overall efficiency but not as much as it would with the original parameters. Conclusions: The proposed solution is viable to use, although further development is necessary before it is ready for release. The necessity currently is not evident, although projections suggest that this solution, or a similar one, will be necessary in the future.
Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) is considered as an important part of intelligent transportation system (ITS). Depending on the interconnection between vehicles and roadside units (RSUs), VANETs can provide a variety of application services for drivers and passengers. Due to the necessary service cost, many applications have to face the problem of how to charge vehicle for the services. This paper, which relies on blockchain technology, takes park toll management system and electronic toll collection system (ETC) as scenarios. Two payment schemes, V-R transaction and V-Rs transaction, are then proposed. The security and performance analysis show that the proposed schemes are efficient and robust.