Miloš N. Mladenović, Montasir Abbas, Claudio Roncoli, Sanaz Bozorg Chenani
Development of integrated mobility and traffic management strategies is an important aspect of the ongoing transition of urban mobility systems. Extending from existing credit schemes, this research presents a system design and evaluation of a framework based on the principle of Universal Basic Mobility. In particular, using premises of long-term cooperation and hierarchical self-organization, the system design includes user-based Mobility Credits interrelated with Priority Levels. To complement the cooperation framework, system architecture is formulated in line with the distributed ledger technology. The proposed framework is tested using web-based interaction in the form of stated-preference experiment. Results are analyzed through statistical distributions and a discrete-choice model of user decision-making within the proposed framework. This research concludes that this framework could nudge uses towards reciprocity and altruism in their travelling behavior. In addition, experiment participants have provided a range of comments related to positive features, potential for failure, and further development. Finally, the paper ends by raising several implications for wider citizen participation in the integrated mobility system design and evaluation.
Ryan Shivers, Mohammad Ashiqur Rahman, Hossain Shahriar
Ride-hailing and ride-sharing applications have recently gained in popularity as a convenient alternative to traditional modes of travel. Current research into autonomous vehicles is accelerating rapidly and will soon become a critical component of a ride-hailing platform's architecture. Implementing an autonomous vehicle ride-hailing platform proves a difficult challenge due to the centralized nature of traditional ride-hailing architectures. In a traditional ride-hailing environment the drivers operate their own personal vehicles so it follows that a fleet of autonomous vehicles would be required for a centralized ride-hailing platform to succeed. Decentralization of the ride-hailing platform would remove a road block along the way to an autonomous vehicle ride-hailing platform by allowing owners of autonomous vehicles to add their vehicle to a community driven fleet when not in use. Blockchain technology is an attractive choice for this decentralized architecture due to its immutability and fault tolerance. This paper proposes a framework for developing a decentralized ride-hailing architecture implemented on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain platform. The implementation is evaluated using a static analysis tool and performing a performance analysis under heavy network load.
Michela Moschella, Pietro Ferraro, Emanuele Crisostomi, Robert Shorten
In this article, we propose a stochastic decentralized algorithm to recommend the most convenient charging station (CS) to plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) that need charging. In particular, we use different cost functions to describe the possibly different priorities of PEV drivers, such as the preference to minimize charging costs, charging times, or the distance between them and the CS. For this purpose, we leverage on an Internet of Things architecture based on a permissioned distributed ledger technology (DLT) to enforce compliance of drivers and reduces the occurrence of detrimental misbehaviors of drivers. Extensive simulations performed with the mobility simulator SUMO in realistic city-wide networks have been provided to illustrate how the proposed PEV assignment procedure works in practice, and to validate its performance.
Michela Moschella, Pietro Ferraro, Emanuele Crisostomi, Robert Shorten
In this paper we propose a stochastic decentralized algorithm to recommend\nthe most convenient Charging Station (CS) to Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs)\nthat need charging. In particular, we use different cost functions to describe\nthe possibly different priorities of PEV drivers, such as the preference to\nminimize charging costs, charging times, or the distance between them and the\nCS. For this purpose, we leverage on an IoT architecture based on a\npermissioned Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to enforce compliance of\ndrivers and reduces the occurrence of detrimental misbehaviours of drivers.\nExtensive simulations performed with the mobility simulator SUMO in realistic\ncity-wide networks have been provided to illustrate how the proposed PEV\nassignment procedure works in practice, and to validate its performance.\n
Zhixin Liu, Lu Gao, Yang Liu, Xinping Guan · 6 authors
Blockchain-based femtocell networks aim to build decentralized frameworks which enable easy deployment and low power consumption, thus they have been seen promising technologies to make up the coverage of cellular networks in the next generation communication system. This article aims to employ power control to support quality-of-service provisioning, especially the guarantee for the transmission rate of a macrocell user (MUE) and the time delay of femtocell users (FUEs) in two-tier femtocell networks, where the MUE and FUEs share the same communication channel. We formulate the interactions among the macrocell base station and FUEs as a Stackelberg game to maximize the utilities of MUE and FUEs by obtaining the optimal power allocation and pricing strategy. Considering the uncertainty of channel gain which is expressed as a function of transmission distance, we propose a worst-case method to transform the uncertain optimization problem into a deterministic one. We then design two algorithms by considering the dynamics of FUEs, i.e., FUEs may join and leave femtocells. Numerical results verify the convergence and superior performance of our proposed algorithms.
Recently, technology startups have leveraged the potential of blockchain-based technologies to govern institutions or interpersonal trust by enforcing signed treaties among different individuals in a decentralized environment. However, it is going to be hard enough convincing that the blockchain technology could completely replace the trust among trading partners in the sharing economy as sharing services always operate in a highly dynamic environment. With the rapid expanding of the rental market, the sharing economy faces more and more severe challenges in the form of regulatory uncertainty and concerns about abuses. This paper proposes an enhanced decentralized sharing economy service using the service level agreement (SLA), which documents the services the provider will furnish and defines the service standards the provider is obligated to meet. The SLA specifications are defined as the smart contract, which facilitates multi-user collaboration and automates the process with no involvement of the third party. To demonstrate the usability of the proposed solution in the sharing economy, a notebook sharing case study is implemented using the Hyperledger Fabric. The functionalities of the smart contract are tested using the Hyperledger Composer. Moreover, the efficiency of the designed approach is demonstrated through a series of experimental tests using different performance metrics.
With recent developments in the blockchain technology, the energy industry is devoting an overwhelming interest towards it. Moreover, the future society will move towards a zero-energy internet to share energy and minimize the energy usage that contributes in producing greenhouse gas consumption. As a result, energy sharing system is undergoing a paradigm shift from centralized energy supply systems to ICT-based distributed energy supply systems. In this regards, a major challenge for the energy market case study is the presence of the energy double spending problem in Micro-Grid (MG), which threatens the security of the trading infrastructure. In this paper, we propose a mechanism that the problem of double energy spending is solved by applying off-chain Hybrid Blockchain (HB) technology to provide a secure environment where energy can be safely shared between prosumer and consumer at a closer distance, without intermediary intervention.
As one of the underlying supporting technologies of Energy Internet, energy blockchain has attracted more and more attention. How to combine energy blockchain with specific application scenarios is a difficult problem in current research. Firstly, the technical feasibility of the application of energy blockchain in the field of energy trading is analyzed in detail. Then, taking the scenario of electric vehicle charging and discharging trading as the breakthrough point, considering the convenience and security of both sides of the transaction, a blockchain system framework supporting consensus algorithm and intelligent contract is proposed, which includes blockchain layer and intelligent contract. There are four layers of architecture: extension layer, application layer and presentation layer. Finally, from the perspective of system platform development, the technical connotation and application demonstration based on ethereum architecture are introduced. The system architecture and its application effect provide technical reference for promoting the integration of energy system and information technology and improving energy efficiency.
Fran Casino, Thomas K. Dasaklis, Constantinos Patsakis
Vendor-managed inventory (VMI) is a commonly used collaborative inventory management policy in which manufacturers/vendors manage the inventory of retailers and take responsibility for making decisions related to the timing and extent of inventory replenishment. Several prerequisites exist for successfully implementing a VMI strategy like information sharing, trust, systems integration and long-term collaboration. However, in nowadays supply chain networks are becoming more complex, highly disjointed and geographically spread. As a consequence, the implementation of a VMI strategy may be a difficult task. In this paper, we propose a new interaction mechanism between retailers and vendors, which aims to improve their supply chain strategy and inventory policies based on a trustless and distributed mechanism. In particular, we use an autonomous trustless framework based on smart contracts and blockchain technology for governing the relationship between multiple vendors and multiple retailers. Finally, a use-case VMI scenario is presented along with several functional smart contracts. Tests performed using a local private blockchain illustrate the applicability of the proposed architecture along with the significant benefits for each participant.
Autonomous Vehicle Platoon (AVP) is the most promising solution to various problems in the Intelligent Transportation System. However, how to effectively manage the join and leaving vehicles, and ensure the profit of the platoon leader remains an open problem. In this paper, we propose a dynamic AVP management protocol by implementing Ethereum. Vehicle who wants to join and leave the platoon has to communicate with the platoon leader, and all messages will be related to the corresponding transactions regulated by the smart contract. Considering the cost efficiency of the AVP system, a hybrid chain model is constructed. The public chain provides with certification records. All platoon message communication records will be stored on the privacy chain and will be upload to the public chain as platoon operation incident record. The evaluation result and security analysis indicate that our proposed scheme is practical for AVP scenario in terms of both efficient and secure.
Viktor Valaštín, Kritian Kost'al, Rastislav Bencel, Ivan Kotuliak
The car-sharing market is constantly growing and recently it has become even more popular than car ownership. However, classic car-sharing system is based on a centralized database server which can often lead to hacker attacks or password leaks. Moreover, in a classic car-sharing system, the owners of the cars can misuse customers' data. As seen nowadays from a lot of use cases, the best solution to these problematic issues is to use blockchain technology. Blockchain as decentralized, immutable, public ledger provides the customers with security that is impossible to tamper. The aim of the proposed solution is to create and implement peer-to-peer short term car-sharing application based on blockchain technology and smart contracts. For the implementation of smart contracts, Solidity programming language is used. Solidity works with Ethereum blockchain. The key novelty of the article is introducing a peer-to-peer car sharing service without a central authority, what reflects a decrease of costs and increase of data transparency in that system. Also token based solution gives us ability to cover business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) use cases.
Electronic bidding systems have become widespread since the advent of the internet and mobile phones. In the Electronic bidding systems, the seller will sell an item and many buyers will bid for that item and the highest bidder will get the item. One of the main issue with this E-Bidding system is the introduction of third-party mainly a company or set of companies which will develop and host either the website or smartphone application. The Buyers and the Sellers have to trust this company because all the bidding process will be handled by the company. The company can manipulate the bidding process if it wants. So to avoid the trust issues blockchain based electronic bidding system is introduced in this paper. In this model, there is no need for third party. Smart Contract will handle all the bidding transactions. Since blockchains are known for its integrity this system makes sure that the integrity of the bidding process is preserved.
H. S. Jennath, S. Adarsh, Nikhil V. Chandran, R. Ananthan · 6 authors
With the advances happening in the area of urbanization, with increased demand for dwellings and ever growing number of vehicles on road, finding a parking spot has become one of the major pain points for the citizens. This is mainly due to the limited parking spaces in the urban areas. To overcome this limitation, one solution is to create more parking spaces. In this work we propose a Blockchain based solution, where parking pools can be created by developing a transparent platform where individuals can rent out their unused land for a stipulated amount of time with little or no legal hassles. A non-fungible token system representing unique parking lots will be created for transparency of the entire system. This also has the added advantage of generating revenue from their otherwise unused property. Smart contracts over Blockchain enforces the contractual agreement between the participants ensuring financial transparency in the proposed system.
Eric Masanet, Arman Shehabi, Nuoa Lei, Harald Vranken · 6 authors
Bitcoin mining is becoming an increasingly energy-intensive process whose future implications for energy use and CO2 emissions remain poorly understood. This is in part because—like many IT systems—its computational efficiencies and service demands have been evolving rapidly. Therefore, scenario analyses that explore these implications can fill pressing knowledge gaps, but they must be approached with care. History has shown that poorly constructed scenarios of future IT energy use—often due to overly-simplistic extrapolations of early rapid growth trends—can do more harm than good by spreading misinformation and driving ill-informed decisions. Indeed, the utility of an energy demand scenario is directly proportional to its credibility, which is typically demonstrated through careful attention to technology characteristics and evolution, analytical rigor and transparency, and designing scenarios that align with plausible future outcomes.
Aug 1, 2019·2019 18th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/13th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE)
With the rapid advance of electric vehicles (EVs) and the sparse public charging infrastructure, the private charging pile sharing networks (PCPSNs) hold the potential to improve the quality of experience (QoE) of using EVs by leveraging private charging piles (PCPs) as shared charging points to charge a group of distributed EVs. However, due to the potential security and privacy issues for EVs and PCPs caused by untrusted participants in decentralized energy market, it becomes a crucial challenge to optimally schedule the charging and sharing strategies of EVs and PCPs in PCPSNs. In this paper, we propose a secure and permissioned blockchain-based PCP sharing scheme for EVs in PCPSNs. Firstly, we present an energy blockchain-based PCPSN framework to enhance the security of distributed energy trading. Secondly, we develop a reputation-based secure PCP sharing protocol to efficiently reach consensus in the blockchain with the implement of BLS multi-signature. Thirdly, we investigate a distributed reputation model to evaluate the trustworthiness of participants and identify malicious users. In addition, based on the many-to-one matching game, the optimal strategies of EVs and PCPs are analyzed by searching the stable matching pairs. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed scheme can not only improve the QoE of users, but also protect the network from adversaries.
Vikas Hassija, Mohd Zaid, Gurjot Singh, Amit Srivastava · 5 authors
Blockchain is a growing list of records, stored in blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography. Blockchain is important because it brings trust to peer-to-peer networks. Various blockchain applications from small to big are focused towards decentralizing different tasks and are trying to empower the masses to act without any intermediary in between. The existing and upcoming blockchain applications are highly promising to increase the level of comfort for everyone. Smart contracts can be thought of as self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller directly written into lines of code. In this paper, we present a detailed review of how blockchain and smart contracts can be used to create a platform for car rental services that will be beneficial for both the car owner and the renter. The platform is cost optimal because there will be no intermediary in between. This will also introduce high security, privacy, authentication, and safety in the car rental industry.
Recently, connected vehicles (CV) are becoming a promising research area leading to the concept of CV as a Service (CVaaS). With the increase of connected vehicles and an exponential growth in the field of online cab booking services, new requirements such as secure, seamless and robust information exchange among vehicles of vehicular networks are emerging. In this context, the original concept of vehicular networks is being transformed into a new concept known as connected and autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicular use yields a better experience and helps in reducing congestion by allowing current information to be obtained by the vehicles instantly. However, malicious users in the internet of vehicles may mislead the whole communication where intruders may compromise smart devices with the purpose of executing a malicious ploy. In order to prevent these issues, a blockchain technique is considered the best technique that provides secrecy and protection to the control system in real time conditions. In this paper, the issue of security in smart sensors of connected vehicles that can be compromised by expert intruders is addressed by proposing a blockchain framework. This study has further identified and validated the proposed mechanism based on various security criteria, such as fake requests of the user, compromise of smart devices, probabilistic authentication scenarios and alteration in stored user's ratings. The results have been analyzed against some existing approach and validated with improved simulated results that offer 79% success rate over the above-mentioned issues.
Kang Liu, Wuhui Chen, Zibin Zheng, Zhenni Li · 5 authors
With the advancement and emergence of diverse network services in Internet of Vehicles (IoV), large volume of data are collected and stored, making data important properties. Data will be one of the most important commodities in the future blockchain-based IoV systems. However, efficiency challenges have been commonly found in blockchain-based data markets, which is mainly caused by transaction confirmation delays and the cold-start problems for new users. To address the efficiency challenges, we propose a secure, decentralized IoV data-trading system by exploiting the blockchain technology, and design an efficient debt-credit mechamism to support efficient data-trading in IoV. In the debt-credit mechanism, a vehicle with loan demand could loan from multivehicles by promising to pay interest and reward. In particular, we encourage loaning among vehicles by a motivation-based investing and pricing mechanism. We formulate a two-stage Stackelberg game to maximize the profits of borrower vehicle and lender vehicles jointly. In the first stage, the borrower vehicle set the interest rate and reward for the loan as its pricing strategies. In the second stage, the lender vehicles decide on their investing strategies. We apply backward induction to analyze the subgame perfect equilibrium at each stage for both independent and uniform pricing schemes. We also validate the existence and uniqueness of Stackelberg equilibrium. The numerical results illustrate the efficiency of the proposed pricing schemes.
This paper describes a used car trading system based on Blockchain technology, which is a case studied for exploring the potential of Blockchain technologies in emerging landscapes and industrial applications. We are committed to solving the problem of lack of transparency and lack of trust in the current transaction of used cars. The Blockchain has played a positive role in improving business efficiency by helping to solve problems such as trust and data sharing. We hope that through our solutions, the used car market will flourish and make emerging Internet technologies more convenient for our lives.
In this paper, we present a vision for a blockchain-based Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) as an application of edge computing. In current MaaS systems, a central MaaS operator plays a crucial role serving an intermediate layer which manages and controls the connections between transportation providers and passengers with several other features. Since the willingness of public and private transportation providers to connect to this layer is essential in the current realization of MaaS, in our vision, to eliminate this layer, a novel blockchain-based MaaS is proposed. The solution also improves trust and transparency for all stakeholders as well as eliminates the need to make commercial agreements with separate MaaS agents. From a technical perspective, the power of computing and resources are distributed to different transportation providers at the edge of the network providing trust in a decentralised way. The blockchain-based MaaS has the potential to emerge as the main component for a smart city transportation offering efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.