A comparative classification of information dissemination approaches in vehicular ad hoc networks from distinctive viewpoints: A survey

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET) have received tremendous attention due to their potential impact on scientific research and their numerous attractive applications. With the aim of getting the intelligent communication for vehicular networks, VANETs can significantly improve the safety and efficiency issues of road traffic without requiring fixed infrastructure or centralized administration. Information dissemination is the base of communication which plays an important role in VANETs and it has become an active area of research in the recent years. However, information dissemination in VANET environment is a challenging task, mainly due to the rapid changes in the network topology and frequent fragmentation. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey on information dissemination in vehicular networks by focusing on some critical issues such as security and privacy, adaptability, scalability and so on. For this, we classify the existing information dissemination solutions into eight new classes based on their design and optimization objectives and give a qualitative overview on each class based on their objectives, forwarding strategy, features and advantages. Finally, we present open research issues to improve the efficiency of information dissemination protocols as much as possible.