Taking VANET to the clouds

Purpose – The past decade has witnessed a growing interest in vehicular networking and its myriad applications. The initial view of practitioners and researchers was that radio‐equipped vehicles can keep the drivers informed about potential safety risks and can enhance their awareness of road conditions and traffic‐related events. This conceptual paper seeks to put forth a novel vision, namely that advances in vehicular networks, embedded devices, and cloud computing can be used to set up what are known as vehicular clouds (VCs).Design/methodology/approach – The paper suggests that VCs are technologically feasible and that they are likely to have a significant societal impact.Findings – The paper argues that at least in some of its manifestations, the ideas behind VCs are eminently implementable under present day technology. It is also expected that, once adopted and championed by municipalities and third‐party infrastructure providers, VCs will redefine the way in which pervasive computing and its myriad...