Received 22 March 2023, accepted 18 April 2023, date of publication 24 April 2023, date of current version 28 April 2023.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2023.3270100

A Research on Blockchain Technology: Urban

Intelligent Transportation Systems
in Developing Countries
XINGCHENG GUO 1, (Member, IEEE), AND XIANGLONG GUO2
1 School of Management, Guangzhou City University of Technology, Guangzhou 510800, China
2 Industrial Development Strategy Research Institute, Nanchang 330008, China

Corresponding author: Xingcheng Guo ([email protected])

This work was supported in part by the University Online Course Committee Fund, Guangdong, China, under Grant 2022ZXKC589; and
in part by the Private Higher Education Committee of Higher Education Association, Guangdong, under Grant 2022MBGJ044.

ABSTRACT Blockchain technology has been widely used in finance, transportation, education, medical
treatment, network security, management science, and other industries due to its decentralization, high
reliability, and traceability characteristics. Unlike other studies on Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems
(UITS) in the past, we present a model framework of the Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS)
applied by blockchain in developing countries. After a detailed elaboration of the situation of three
representative Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS) in China, blockchain technology has been
applied to build a new architecture model of the big data platform for urban intelligent transportation, as well
as the design concept and conceptual model for the new generation of the Urban Intelligent Transportation
Systems (UITS) in developing countries. Finally, this paper elaborates on the critical direction of future
development, areas of concern, and open research challenges, which researchers and urban intelligent
transportation designers could explore to further advance in this field.

INDEX TERMS Blockchain, blockchain architecture, intelligent transport systems (ITS), urban intelligent
transport systems (UITS), developing countries, security.

I. INTRODUCTION field of blockchain technology extends to education, govern-

The core technology of blockchain began to appear from ment management, medical care, transportation, etc. It can
the late 1980s to the early 1990s [1]. Satoshi Nakamoto confirm, measure and store the property rights of the valuable
proposed the concept of Bitcoin based on the core technology information in the blockchain and quickly establish credit,
of blockchain [2]. As an emerging technology, blockchain making the work more convenient and efficient [5].
has carried out applicability research based on its charac- The application of blockchain in transportation is crucial
teristics of decentralization, high reliability, and traceability. because public blockchain technology has become increas-
The blockchain is a universally acclaimed innovation based ingly important. Transportation is considered the backbone
on distributed ledger technology [3]. Melanie Swan defined of cities. It provides essential mobility services for peo-
the development of blockchain technology at three levels [4]: ple’s daily life and logistics goods [6], [7], [8]. The gradual
blockchain 1.0 (currency interconnection), automation, digitalization, and intellectualization of trans-
mainly bitcoin and other virtual currencies; Blockchain 2.0 portation is the inevitable trend of transportation develop-
(asset interconnection) takes smart contracts as the primary ment. Apply intelligent technology to the transportation field
feature and can develop decentralized application DAPP as to achieve the development goal of networked vehicles [9].
required; Blockchain 3.0 (Internet of Things), the application The story of intelligent transportation cannot be separated
from the innovation of advanced technologies such as big data
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and analysis, artificial intelligence, and information technology.
approving it for publication was Mansoor Ahmed . However, integrating these emerging technologies has also
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
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X. Guo, X. Guo: Research on Blockchain Technology: UITS in Developing Countries

brought a certain degree of security risk to Intelligent Trans- data platform for urban intelligent transportation has been
portation Systems and caused social attention to the network built based on blockchain technology. By taking advantage
security of Intelligent Transportation Systems. Currently, the of the advantages of blockchain, such as decentralization,
cross-regional sharing mechanism in the Intelligent Trans- distributed computing, big data sharing, and incentive mech-
portation Systems network is not perfect, the cooperation effi- anism, the problem of independent management and trans-
ciency between departments is low, and there are a series of mission of data by various organizations of the traditional
network security problems such as massive data sharing and urban intelligent transportation data network architecture has
storage, information acquisition and information acquisition been solved, thus promoting data sharing. Third, improve
and tampering, and user privacy disclosure [10]. Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS) in devel-
Blockchain technology is introduced into the intelligent oping countries, and propose a top-level design architecture
transportation network to solve the above problems. The data model based on blockchain traffic cloud. However, based on
under blockchain technology is authentic and can not be the literature review, no paper has addressed detailed aspects
tampered with. It can provide technical support for storing, of improving urban transportation intelligent systems (UITS)
sharing, traceability, and anti-attack traffic data. Blockchain in developing countries based on blockchain technology. This
offers technical support for the construction of the trans- lack of comprehensiveness motivates us to contribute through
portation field, such as using blockchain technology to share this research on the current situation of Urban Intelligent
traffic congestion, road traffic flow, and other data infor- Transportation Systems (UITS) in developing countries and
mation to solve the problem of information blocking and the future development of Intelligent Transportation Systems
data integration difficulties in transportation, combined with based on blockchain technology in developing countries.
edge computing and other technologies, it is applied to the Many survey articles have been written in the recent past
Internet of Vehicles to improve the overall safety and synergy with only a focus on specific ITS technology, application
of the system and provide safety guarantee for transporta- development, key success factors, etc. Some papers have also
tion. At present, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) presented the applications of the traditional ITS model, etc.
have become one of the key topics of academic research Strengthening the data security of ITS is also studied in some
and also in some international standardization organizations, papers, including [16], [17], [18], [19], [20].
such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [11] and However, on the other side, the contribution of this research
International Standards Organization (ISO). The success of is as follows: To study the Urban Intelligent Transportation
blockchain technology is conducive to solving problems such Systems (UITS) in developing countries, select the Intelli-
as network security of Intelligent Transportation Systems gent Transportation Systems of three representative cities in
(ITS). ITS can be traced back to the 1970s. It is the direc- China as the research objects, including the research sys-
tion of the future traffic system [12]. The essential underly- tem architecture, functions, advantages, and disadvantages.
ing technologies of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Moreover, a new network model architecture of the big data
include electronic sensing technology, intelligent control platform for urban intelligent transportation has been built
technology, data transmission technology, etc. [13], [14], [15] based on blockchain technology. Finally, optimize the struc-
ITS aims to provide more convenient and safer travel and ture of Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS) in
transportation modes for drivers, riders, and pedestrians. developing countries, and build a top-level model framework
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have attained based on blockchain traffic cloud.
huge fame. However, problems and new challenges in devel- Ultimately the goal of this research is to acquaint
oping countries are still facing, especially when combined researchers and urban transport system designers in devel-
with blockchain technology, such as open issues in security oping countries with the urban intelligent transport sys-
and privacy. tem architecture based on blockchain technology and the
detailed intelligent transportation system architecture model
A. CONTRIBUTION AND COMPARISON WITH RELATED of major cities in China, a typical representative of developing
RESEARCH ARTICLES countries.
This paper mainly contributes to the existing knowledge in
three broad ways. First, this paper studies the Urban Intel- B. ORGANIZATION OF THE SURVEY
ligent Transportation Systems (UITS) of China, a represen- The organization of the survey is as follows and shown in
tative country in the developing countries, focusing on the Figure 1. Section II discusses the background concepts as
current structural models of Intelligent Transportation Sys- preliminaries to understand better this paper’s core, followed
tems in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Foshan, analyzes the by Blockchain and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
advantages and disadvantages of the structural models of characteristics. This section also highlights Blockchain tech-
Intelligent Transportation Systems in the three cities. It is nology and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) chal-
conducive to the overall understanding and reference of lenges and issues. Section III presents the structure model of
other developing countries, especially for government offi- Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) of the three cities
cials in developing countries with relatively weak profes- in China, a typical representative of developing countries in
sional skills. Second, a new network architecture of the big detail. In section IV, we propose a big data platform structure

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FIGURE 2. Blockchain structure diagram.

uses smart contracts composed of automated script code to

program and operate data [22]. Each block contains the data
to be recorded, the current block of the root Hash, the previous
block of the root Hash, the timestamp, and other information.
The blockchain is formed by linking the root hash values
of the front and back blocks according to the timestamp
sequence [23], [24], [25]. The structure of the Blockchain is
as follows and shown in Figure 2.
Blockchain has the characteristics of decentralization,
sequential data, collective maintenance, programmability,
security, and anonymity [26]. The various operation pro-
cesses of blockchain data are based on the distributed sys-
FIGURE 1. Structure and contribution of this research.
tem structure. Pure mathematical methods are used instead
of the central mechanism to establish the trust relationship
for urban intelligent transportation based on blockchain tech- of each node, forming a decentralized distributed system.
nology. The research and innovation in constructing a new Each block has a timestamp, which adds a time attribute to
generation of urban intelligent transportation brain systems the data to achieve data verification and traceability [27].
based on blockchain technology are highlighted in section V. Each distributed node jointly participates in data maintenance
Section VI describes the open research issues learned from and verification under the specific incentive mechanism and
this research and the literature review to carry out in the determines the specific new block into the chain through
future, and finally, Section VII concludes the research. a consensus algorithm. The blockchain system provides a
flexible script code system to support users to in creating
II. BACKGROUND AND CHALLENGES smart contracts or other DAPPs according to their needs. The
This section first presents the basic concepts of Blockchain encryption is based on the principle of asymmetric cryptog-
Technology and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) raphy, and the security of the system is guaranteed with the
then discuss the characteristics and issues of the status of help of the consensus mechanism of the distributed system
Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems(UITS) in develop- [28]. The transaction process does not need to pass the public
ing countries. identity, which has the characteristics of anonymity.
In recent years, blockchain has developed rapidly, and
A. BACKGROUND AND CHALLENGES OF BLOCKCHAIN its application scenarios have quickly grown in other fields
TECHNOLOGY besides the financial area [29]. The United Nations,the United
Blockchain is an innovation mode and application of dis- States, the United Kingdom, Japan, the IMF, multinational
tributed data storage technology, P2P network, encryption banks, securities companies, and other countries or institu-
algorithm, smart contract, consensus mechanisms, and other tions actively explore and promote the research and applica-
information technologies in the Internet era [21]. The birth tion of blockchain technology [30].
of blockchain cannot be separated from Bitcoin. The Bit- As a distributed ledger technology, blockchain overcomes
coin system has been the most influential and well-known the disadvantages of traditional centralized ledgers, such
application case of blockchain technology. Broadly speak- as low storage efficiency, low credibility, and vulnerability
ing, blockchain technology is a new distributed infrastructure to single-point attacks. The technology ensures distributed
and computing paradigm that uses blockchain data structure sharing, multi-party consensus, tamper resistance, and trace-
to verify and store data, uses distributed node consensus ability. Distributed ledger (a shared ledger or distributed
algorithm to generate and update data, uses cryptography ledger technology) is a replication consensus that shares
to ensure the security of data transmission and access, and and synchronizes digital data geographically distributed

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across multiple websites, countries, or institutions. No central the intelligent transportation brain and intelligent manage-
administrator or centralized data storage [31]. ment system to take over the urban traffic in all directions
At present, there are still many problems in the practical automatically, traffic managers still need to carry out aux-
application of blockchain technology [32], [33]. For exam- iliary management of urban traffic, and even occupy the
ple, the distributed storage architecture has high hardware main decision-making position [41]. For example, the urban
requirements for each physical node, the blockchain system intelligent transportation data mainly relies on the relevant
throughput is small, the transaction information processing businesses of the transportation bureau and the traffic police
rate is low, the consensus mechanism still has vulnerabilities, bureau, lacks the cross-department, cross-industry data shar-
and the smart contract may be attacked. These problems still ing, aggregation of mobile phone signaling data, meteorolog-
restrict the application width of blockchain technology in ical data, infrastructure data, railway data, etc., and is difficult
practical scenarios, and the key to solving these problems is to grasp the urban population distribution, land development,
to build a good blockchain development environment in all urban space, travel rules, etc., which is insufficient to support
fields [34]. the traffic management business [42]. Therefore, the gradual
transformation of Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems
B. BACKGROUND AND CHALLENGES OF URBAN (UITS) in developing countries from semi-automatic to auto-
INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS(UITS) matic still has a long way to go.
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) is the applica-
tion of communication, electronics, machinery, vehicles,
III. INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS IN CHINA
control, information, and other technologies to the trans-
The Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS) in
portation industry, and the ability to correctly, flexibly,
developing countries and developed countries are quite
and rapidly understand and propose solutions to maximize
different and start relatively late [43]. China is a typical repre-
the efficiency of transportation and improve traffic con-
sentative country of developing countries with a large popula-
ditions [35], [36], [37]. Intelligent transportation can pro-
tion, and the management of Urban Intelligent Transportation
vide better transportation information services for the public,
Systems (UITS) is complex. At present, China has invested
enhance the safety and environmental protection of transport,
more resources in constructing Urban Intelligent Transporta-
improve transportation efficiency, and provide more effective
tion Systems (UITS), and Intelligent Transportation Systems
means for transportation management [38].
(ITS) have entered a period of rapid development. China’s
The development of Urban Intelligent Transportation Sys-
Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS) is in the
tems (UITS) went through the ITS 1.0 era in 2005, the ITS
stage of system integration, and the whole is in an era of
2.0 era in 2015, and the current ITS 3.0 era. It is recon-
equal emphasis on construction and management [44]. The
structs the system service concept and mode with the new
following describes the Intelligent Transportation Systems of
technological transformation. Urban traffic managers have
Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Foshan in China.
started to use big data to drive the innovation and upgrad-
ing of traffic management and services. Intelligent travel,
intelligent logistics, intelligent assisted driving, etc., have A. GUANGZHOU INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION
become intelligent transportation’s innovation and develop- SYSTEMS
ment direction [39]. Many developed countries, including the Guangzhou is the south gate of China. It is an essential central
United States, Japan, and Singapore, are vigorously develop- city, international trade center, and comprehensive transporta-
ing automatic driving and vehicle networking technology and tion hub in China, approved by the State Council [45].
improving the automation and intelligence of urban traffic At present, facing the needs of urban transport
management through investment in the construction of intel- development in the new era, Guangzhou has improved
ligent transportation facilities [40]. the management system and mechanism of transportation
In the cities of developed countries in Europe and the informatization construction and has deeply studied the big
United States, intelligent transportation is the construction data system of urban intelligent transportation. It has built
content of general concern. Its core is mainly reflected in the the framework of ‘‘one center, three platforms, and four
construction of four systems, as follows and shown in Table 1, guarantees’’ intelligent transportation big data system in
intelligent perception (such as an intelligent road), intelli- Guangzhou, continuously promoted the integration and appli-
gent decision-making (such as intelligent logistics, intelli- cation of new generation information technologies such as
gent parking, customized freight), intelligent operation (such big data in the field of urban transportation, and carried out a
as intelligent traffic control) and intelligent services (full- series of meaningful practices in data perception, processing,
chain personalized services, such as intellectual connection, application, etc., providing some experience for reference for
customized information, and robot pickup) [30]. This also the application of big data in the transportation industry [46].
represents the inevitable direction of future urban intelligent According to the policies of the ‘‘14th Five Year Plan’’
transportation development in developing countries. for the Reform and Construction of the Guangzhou Digi-
At present, when the Intelligent Transportation Systems tal Government, Guangzhou has built a ‘‘one center, three
(ITS) in most developing countries cannot fully realize platforms, and four guarantees’’ [47], [48] urban intelligent

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TABLE 1. Key points of urban intelligent transportation systems

construction in developed countries.

FIGURE 3. The architecture of the guangzhou intelligent transportation

systems.

1) Guangzhou transportation industry data sharing and

analysis service platform. As the core component of the
transport big data center, the Guangzhou transport indus-
try data sharing and analysis service platform integrates
the data resources of the transport industry in Guangzhou.
The data resources cover 17 sectors, more than 800 types
of data, and are connected to more than 90 transportation
industry information systems. The amount of new data is
more than over 250 GB. At the same time, the platform has
realized cross-department, cross-industry, cross-field infor-
mation sharing and access to Guangzhou Public Security
Bureau, Metro Group, Meteorological Bureau, Environmen-
tal Protection Bureau, and other data resources. It sup-
ports passenger flow monitoring and analysis, transportation
guarantee, traffic management, expressway and expressway
in key areas, road traffic security, and other applications.
In addition, the platform has established data standards and
specifications, a data resource directory, and data resources
transportation big data system, it includes: promoting data of Guangzhou transportation industry core systems such as
perception and sharing, strengthening data transmission effi- sharing and basic application services have been sorted and
ciency, deepening data mining analysis, and innovating data completed by relevant data standards of the Ministry of Trans-
application services. Among them, ‘‘one center’’ refers to port local data application needs.More than 5000 data stan-
the transportation big data center, and ‘‘three platforms’’ dards have further strengthened and standardized the sharing
are the intelligent perception platform, integrated business and management of traffic information data and managed
platform, and innovative service platform. Under the intelli- the number of transportation industries in the city. According
gent transportation big data system framework, Guangzhou to resources, it provides comprehensive data integration and
strengthened data fusion analysis and association mining, analysis capabilities for various business systems.
built cross-dimensional data analysis capabilities, and drove 2) Comprehensive monitoring and integrated manage-
industry governance and service quality improvement with ment platform for traffic operation. The platform adopts
big data innovation. The following introduces several rep- the multi-dimensional integrated data fusion management
resentative system platforms based on the framework struc- mode to carry out the integrated management of the air-
ture of the Guangzhou Intelligent Transportation Systems port, port, railway, bus, taxi, subway, water bus, passenger,
(ITS) [44]. Figure 3 shows the architecture of Guangzhou freight transportation, maintenance, driving training, trans-
Intelligent Transportation Systems [48]. portation network, station yard, real-time road conditions,

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video, weather, etc., and upgraded the Smart Spring Festival

Transport 3.0 system using big data, artificial intelligence,
and other technologies. The system comprehensively and
timely grasps the current situation, accurately and efficiently
predicts the future trend, quantificationally and directionally
dispatches the transport capacity, pre-assesses the impact of
measures, and comprehensively evaluates and summarizes,
forming a new mode of transportation guarantee for the sci-
ence and technology spring festival transport.
5) Guangzhou Public Transport Intelligent Management
Service Platform. In combination with the establishment of
‘‘China’s Public Transport City,’’ Guangzhou has promoted
the construction of the public transport intelligent applica-
FIGURE 4. Intelligent optimization system for signal timing at road
intersections in huangpu district, guangzhou.
tion demonstration project and built the Guangzhou pub-
lic transport intelligent management service platform based
on the intelligent public transport management system. The
crowd passenger flow, and other fields. It realizes the platform carries out macro management from the five sec-
functions of comprehensive information monitoring, multi- tors of the public transport network, transport capacity, pas-
dimensional thematic analysis, early warning, and warn- senger flow, service supervision, and operation monitoring.
ing [49], [50], [51]. Through business integration analysis, It carries out comprehensive real-time monitoring of the four
the platform targeted to carry out decision-making research major types of characteristic public transport in Guangzhou,
on multiple business data such as comprehensive transport, including BRT, customized public transport, water bus, and
public transport, road transport, urban traffic governance, sightseeing loop line, to meet the needs of people for com-
established one-stop management and control of hierarchical, prehensive query and trend analysis of more than 100 items
and hierarchical traffic situations to provide support for com- of information in the public transport industry, with mobile
prehensive control of traffic situation and scientific command internet The national one-card interconnection and other
and dispatching. technologies provide convenient travel services for citizens,
3) The urban traffic big data system strengthens the three- integrates face recognition, and intelligent scheduling tech-
dimensional perception of traffic demand, supply, and the nology to provide one-click call and timely response services.
environment by collecting more fine-grained data, espe- 6) Guangzhou Urban Comprehensive Traffic Operation
cially the quantitative perception of the space-time state Situation Monitoring and Analysis System. Using mobile
of passenger flow and traffic flow. At present, the trans- internet, big data, cloud computing, satellite positioning, and
portation industry in Guangzhou has formed a multi-source other information technologies based on the data sharing
data acquisition mode. Through video, mobile signaling, and analysis service platform of the transportation industry,
machine vision, satellite positioning, all-in-one card, sen- Guangzhou has built a comprehensive urban traffic opera-
sor, microwave, next-generation Bluetooth and other acqui- tion situation monitoring and analysis system that integrates
sition channels, it can sense the status information of public transport, taxi, passenger transport, road transport,
vehicle flow, passenger flow, logistics, roads, traffic events, station hub, highway, and other industry supervision services,
and other elements. Among them, the satellite position- to grasp the operation of various industries in real-time The
ing data is 1.25 billion pieces/day, which has fully covered rapid development of traffic command and decision-making
more than 15000 buses, more than 20000 taxis, more than provides strong technical support.
130000 passenger and freight operating vehicles, and more 7) Urban public travel information service platform.To
than 20000 online rental vehicles in Guangzhou, realizing the make general travel predictable, Guangzhou has built a com-
functions of real-time vehicle positioning, operation safety prehensive, multi-mode and all-coverage transportation ser-
supervision, travel information services, etc.; There are more vice system by integrating data from multiple departments,
than 10000 videos and 20 million business data per day; launched a comprehensive transportation information ser-
IC card data is about 9 million pieces/day, Figure 4 shows vice platform such as ‘‘TravelSky,’’ and provided more than
an intelligent optimization system for signal timing at road 20 one-stop information queries such as travel planning, route
intersections in Huangpu District, Guangzhou. navigation, arrival time prediction, waiting for the reminder,
4) Guangzhou Smart China Spring Festival Transport 3.0 and bus arrival reminder, meeting the public’s real-time
system. To relieve the high pressure of passenger flow surge understanding of the location and road conditions on the way
during holidays in China, Guangzhou Transportation Bureau Anticipated demands such as travel time, estimated arrival
organized the transportation and investment companies affil- time, etc. In addition, to expand the coverage of informa-
iated with the public transport group to integrate more than tion services, the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Commu-
230 types of data related to transportation, such as public nications and Transportation has carried out transportation
transport, taxi, passenger transport, subway, aviation, railway, through the mainstream Internet, such as Gaode Software

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a traffic information sharing platform for the traffic bureau,

planning bureau, and the competent departments of the public
security traffic police bureau, to build an Intelligent Trans-
portation Systems, traffic planning management, decision
support system, and intelligent transportation management
system respectively. With its own business, Shenzhen Trans-
port Commission has built a platform (traffic information
exchange platform) and five effective systems (traffic inte-
grated monitoring system, traffic integrated control system,
traffic operation command system, public travel informa-
tion service system, and traffic management system). It has
accumulated experience in big data collection and integra-
tion, application, and new technology storage. The munici-
pal traffic police have basically completed the construction
of eight management and control business systems (trunk
traffic guidance, parking path guidance, traffic accidents,
accident detection and release guidance, illegal management,
illegal real-time notification, police service management, and
122 alarm reception and handling), and has initially carried
out the collection of basic data, initially can control traffic
signals, and has initially realized the basic application of data
FIGURE 5. Shenzhen intelligent transportation systems.
and multi-channel information release.
3) The development of transportation and management in
Co., Ltd., and Alibaba Group Business cooperation provides Shenzhen needs to strengthen the comprehensive connection
more comprehensive and accurate information services for with the big data platform at the national level. At the same
the public. time, the continuous emergence of new forms of transporta-
tion, such as online buses, online taxis, and shared bicycles,
B. SHENZHEN INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS poses new challenges to the existing traffic management
Shenzhen is the first special economic zone established by and service system. In 2016, to coordinate the strategic
China reform and opening up, the window of China’s reform development plan of building a new smart city, Shenzhen
and opening up, and has developed into an influential inter- successively launched the overall planning of Shenzhen’s
national city [52], [53]. Shenzhen’s Intelligent Transportation comprehensive transportation big data platform and the over-
Systems is divided into the following three steps, and Figure 5 all improvement project of intelligent transportation control.
shows the architecture of Shenzhen Intelligent Transportation The former integrates cross-industry and cross-department
Systems. transportation big-data resources. It promotes the compre-
1) Shenzhen is the first city in China to establish an online hensive and in-depth application of big data in transportation
transportation system [52]. It has built a public information planning, construction, and operation management by follow-
platform for intelligent transportation, made a breakthrough ing the requirements of ‘‘multiple integrations, real-time sim-
in transforming the traditional transportation planning pro- ulation, and decision support.’’ It also supports Shenzhen’s
cess, and formed a quantitative transportation operation urban transportation planning and construction decision-
forecast and auxiliary decision support system. Shenzhen making with big data technology services to increase effi-
has determined the three-layer framework of an Intelligent ciency and improve comprehensive transportation services
Transportation System (ITS) around information infrastruc- and the quality of the refined transportation environment.
ture, public information platform, and application services. Build the platform as the decision-making support brain
According to the integrated service function of urban traffic of the city’s comprehensive transportation application, and
planning construction management, 49 user services are pro- boost the supply-side reform of Shenzhen’s transportation
vided to management organizations, transport practitioners, infrastructure. The latter aims at active control focus on data
product (service) providers, and relevant departments in 9 ser- fusion and vehicle-road coordination and takes data-driven
vice areas, including traffic information collection, public policing as the direction to transform, expand and integrate
information platform, government decision support, traffic the existing system and establish an operation control and
information service, public transport management, road oper- policing control system for the whole network, the whole
ation management, hub logistics information, traffic safety, area, and the entire point.
and vehicle safety, and ITS data management.
2) Taking the opportunity of holding the 26th Universi- C. FOSHAN INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
ade, Shenzhen decided to build a ‘‘1+3’’ intelligent system Since implementing the last round of intelligent transporta-
framework for the near future implementation, that is, to build tion development planning, Foshan Intelligent Transportation

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Systems construction has made specific achievements. In the as tight constraints on transportation facilities and resources.
past few years, Foshan initiated the preparation of the Foshan At present, the proportion of transportation facilities has
Intelligent Transport Development Plan (2015-2025) [54], reached the upper limit of the national standard.
which defined the goal of ‘‘full system coordination, high The contradiction between the supply and demand of
data sharing, and comprehensive service delivery’’ between traffic is increasingly intensifying, and traffic congestion is
the horizontal traffic and traffic police departments, and facing normalization. The development of transportation in
established the overall framework of ‘‘1+2+2’’, namely, the three places has entered a stage of ‘‘equal emphasis
a data exchange and sharing platform, two centers (the on construction and management’’ or even ‘‘management-
municipal public security traffic navigation and control based.’’ In this case, it is urgent to fully tap the service
information release center and the municipal comprehen- capacity of existing transportation facilities with the help of
sive traffic coordination command center). Two comprehen- new intelligent transportation technology and bring about the
sive applications (comprehensive transportation information improvement of traffic efficiency [55], [56], [57]. In addition,
service platform and comprehensive transportation decision the traffic safety situation is still grim, which is far from
support system).Foshan intelligent transportation has been advanced international cities. Compared with the death rate
constructed in many applications. Figure 5 shows the archi- per 10000 vehicles, for example, Shenzhen (1.35 in 2015) is
tecture of Foshan Intelligent Transportation Systems. currently equivalent to Hong Kong (1.85 in 2014), which is
1) Regarding industry governance, Foshan’s competent generally equivalent to the level of developed countries in the
department of transportation has successfully launched the 1990s. It is the best among the first-tier cities in China, but
construction of intelligent projects related to eight systems, it is far from the wor- ld-class advanced cities of London
including a taxi service and management information system (0.45 in 2013), Tokyo (0.38 in 2013), and Berlin (0.28 in
and a comprehensive management system of vehicles. 2013) [52]. The new Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
2) Regarding traffic system management, it has realized will improve traffic safety and the environment and produce
urban traffic management functions such as traffic infor- substantial social benefits [58]. For example, the new Internet
mation collection, monitoring, and information release for of Vehicles System will reduce the accident rate by 44%,
the central metropolitan area, trunk roads, and the first ring and the New Driverless System will reduce the accidents
expressway. It has realized networking and sharing with the caused by human factors by 80%. The reliability of traffic
city’s security video checkpoint system. information service is insufficient, and the travel experience
3) In the aspect of intelligent public transport, it has built needs to be improved. Under the new generation of infor-
an online intelligent public transport platform across the mation technology environment, high-precision maps, 5G
network, completed the joint network control of the munic- communications, Internet big data, etc., have laid a strong
ipal and district governments, TC institutions, and business foundation for improving the travel experience in the whole
operations, and realized the automation and intelligence of process, and the means of transportation information services
operation scheduling, cost accounting, industry supervision, are becoming more and more abundant. However, because
decision analysis, and comprehensive services. the traditional existing information release still relies on the
4) Regarding travel services, the Municipal Transportation traditional three screens (mobile phone screen, TV screen,
Bureau has successfully completed the construction of rele- and induction screen), there are deficiencies in the diversifica-
vant projects of ‘‘Foshan Transportation’’ to serve citizens, tion, real-time, personalization, and reliability of information
providing real-time and accurate travel service information services, which need to be improved urgently [59].
for citizens. More importantly, in the current hierarchical distribution
5) In terms of transportation decision-making, the con- of the three urban intelligent transportation data networks,
struction of the Foshan Transportation Decision Support Sys- each organization independently manages and uploads data,
tem was launched in 2012. At present, the basic framework which makes it challenging to realize data sharing. Enter-
of the system has been built, and the data-sharing access and prises, government departments, industrial organizations, and
processing of all departments need to be further deepened. relevant scientific research institutions collect static data
6) In terms of intelligent transportation data, the ‘‘cloud’’ and build basic databases for business needs [60]. These
platform for intelligent transportation virtualization has been organizations have limited data collection channels and are
built. The data center has gathered 38 application systems, limited by their data management capabilities, resulting in
56 categories and 161 thematic data, forming about 900T of imperfect basic database construction and low data collec-
massive traffic data. tion rate, In contrast, dynamic data is collected by various
devices arranged in the Urban Intelligent Transportation Sys-
tems(UTIS) [61], [62], [63]. The collected dynamic data
D. DEFECTS OF INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS directly belongs to the collection equipment management
IN THREE CITIES or user organization. In the traditional mode, data belong
Intelligent transportation construction has achieved some to various organizations, making verifying and sharing data
positive results in China’s three ultra-high-density large difficult. Due to the actual demand of the industry for big
cities. However, there are still areas for improvement, such data sharing, big data com- panies, relevant scientific research

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institutions, government statistical departments, and other feasibility of blockchain landing in the transportation indus-
organizations collect basic data for big data analysis or trad- try is growing. Under the pressure load of the new cloud cen-
ing. These comprehensive data management organizations ter, the development characteristics of blockchain technology
are also organizationally independent, and there are few big with edge computing as the core meet the requirements of the
data sharing at the same level. Instead, they actively expand era of intelligent transportation.
the basic data source and collect data from the lower basic Relying on the decentralized, tamper-proof, and traceable
data layer [64]. characteristics of blockchain technology, taking block data
Traffic is chain management, where data is constantly as the core, removing the centralized data management of
exchanged to improve management [65], [66]. Intelligent various organizations, changing the data collection, data pro-
traffic is information management based on traffic network cessing and analysis, data storage mode, methods, and fully
infrastructure and traffic flow, which is naturally consistent realizing the platform-based big data sharing, decentralized
with the chain mode of blockchain. Introducing blockchain and distributed computing of the multi-source system of
technology into the field of intelligent transportation, car- urban intelligent transportation. Using blockchain technology
rying out the construction of the underlying platform of in big data can prevent data from being arbitrarily added,
transportation blockchain, and breaking through the thinking modified, and deleted, greatly enhancing the elasticity and
of internal research in the field of transport are of great storage capacity of big data. While enhancing security, var-
significance to mining the potential value of various types of ious technologies in big data can be interacted with without
data across areas, industries, and regions [67], [68], [69]. barriers, forming a higher level of interaction and generating
new data support.
Applying blockchain technology to intelligent transporta-
IV. URBAN INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION BIG DATA tion big data platforms can solve various problems of existing
PLATFORM BASED ON BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY big data centers. Firstly, blockchain technology’s distributed
A. APPLICABILITY AND FEASIBILITY OF BLOCKCHAIN and decentralized nature distributes hundreds of servers and
TECHNOLOGY IN URBAN INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION massive storage across the nodes of each participant, which
SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES can significantly reduce the system’s deployment, opera-
Seven significant areas of focus for constructing new infras- tion, and maintenance costs. Secondly, blockchain technol-
tructure in developing countries: 5G base stations, ultra-high ogy adopts the concept of peer-to-peer nodes. In addition to a
voltage, intercity high-speed railways, intercity rail transit, unified basic service node, each participant node also focuses
new energy vehicle charging piles, big data centers, arti- on its business. On the one hand, it has dramatically reduced
ficial intelligence, and industrial internet. The essence of the difficulty of technological research and development of
new infrastructure is to promote the construction of smart the unified transportation big data platform. On the other
city infrastructure with information digitization infrastruc- hand, it has improved the processing capacity of dedicated
ture, improve the importance and security of data, and data. Finally, the introduction of smart contracts allows the
complement the development of blockchain technology. Arti- system to complete the introduction of new business models
ficial intelligence promotes single-point intelligence, indus- and data models only through software deployment in the
trial internet promotes single-point intelligence integration, form of smart contracts, without the need to reconstruct
and blockchain forms a group contract to establish a trusted the storage structure of the back-end database and the data
mechanism for edge blocks. With edge computing as the core, structure of the access interface, significantly improving the
combined with artificial intelligence and 5G technology [81], flexibility and scalability of the system.
the smart road, by deploying smart street lights, establishes
a holographic road network system, dynamically tracks and
counts block traffic, links traffic trends, and controls intersec- B. BIG DATA PLATFORM ARCHITECTURE OF URBAN
tion information control units in real-time. New infrastructure INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION BASED ON BLOCKCHAIN
policies in developing countries provide reliable support for TECHNOLOGY
blockchain technology linkage. The urban intelligent transportation data block in the data
Advanced chips at home and abroad continue to be layer includes static and dynamic data blocks. Both types of
upgraded and supported. High computing power, outdoor data have timestamp characteristics [70]. The static data is
process power chips, including industrial grade TX2 and relatively poor in liquidity, and the dynamic data is more time-
Shengteng 310, support high requirements such as edge varying. Therefore, these two data types are constructed sep-
artificial intelligence. Disk storage specifications have also arately in the blockchain data layer to form an interconnected
made some notable progress in recent years. Industrial-grade blockchain network [71]. Moreover, in some cases, urban
storage chips with high capacity and high-speed read and transportation big data is a combination of dynamic data
write performance are improving. The needs of various sce- and static data. Therefore, a consensus algorithm combining
narios are gradually sorted out, and business agreements are dynamic and static traffic data should be established at this
increasingly improving, coinciding with the digitization of layer in the future. Accordingly, the dynamic and static data
transportation. With the policy support of networking, the consensus algorithms are established in the consensus layers,

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respectively. At the incentive level, the resource provision TABLE 2. The architecture of big data platform for urban intelligent
transportation based on blockchain technology.
mechanism and resource adjustment mechanism are used
to encourage the data sharing of all nodes and realize the
network’s decentralization, as shown in Table 2.
The basic architecture of the big data platform of urban
intelligent transportation based on blockchain technology
reconstructs the basic data layer of the traditional urban intel-
ligent transportation data network architecture, excluding the
basic data source layer. The relationship between urban intel-
ligent transportation data blocks and data sources, and adds
regulatory access servers for each blockchain node to ensure
the security of information. It can be seen that the urban intel-
ligent transportation big data platform of blockchain technol-
ogy takes block data as the core, removes the centralized data
management of various organizations, and fully realizes the
platform-based big data sharing. Especially through the role
of the consensus layer, incentive layer, and contract layer,
data can be verified, trusted, interactive, and easy to analyze;
Through the network layer and data layer, the data can be eas-
ily traced, stored, standardized, unified and standardized, and
the data of the urban intelligent transportation data network
can be more complete and authentic. The data platform can
be more optimized, intelligent, and global.

C. ADVANTAGES OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN

URBAN INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION BIG DATA
PLATFORM
Under the traditional intelligent transportation data network
architecture, take urban road traffic dynamic information as
an example: road congestion information is collected by the
data source terminal equipment of the transportation depart-
ment or uploaded by the user of the navigation software;
Relevant government units upload the control information;
Road environmental information is mainly collected by mon-
itoring equipment of meteorological department; Vehicle dis- organizations so that data is ‘‘shared’’ from beginning to end.
tribution information is provided or collected by navigation Moreover, the distributed computing and decentralization of
platform, operation company, and traffic monitoring equip- blockchain ensure the ‘‘levelization’’ of all data and avoid the
ment [72], [73], [74]. The data sources of this information are loss, distortion, and verification difficulties of inter-level data
different. After each provider of the basic data management transmission.
layer processes the collected data, the comprehensive data In comparison, the urban intelligent transportation big data
management layer processes the data again. In the whole platform architecture of blockchain technology has funda-
process, the data is collected in a decentralized way and then mentally changed the traditional intelligent transportation
processed by the organizations of the basic data management data network architecture, completely changed the data col-
layer, and then collected and processed by the comprehensive lection, data processing, analysis, data storage mode, and
data management layer for the second time. Due to the inde- methods, and truly realized big data sharing, decentralization,
pendence of the organizations of the basic data management and distributed computing. It can be predicted that the big
layer and the comprehensive data management layer, data data platform of urban intelligent transportation based on
cannot be shared at the same level but can be transferred blockchain technology can bring advantages such as signif-
between different levels according to the business and func- icantly reducing system costs, significantly increasing sys-
tions of each organization. tem data volume and encouraging data sharing, removing
Under the big data platform architecture of urban intel- the limitation of administrative management level, improv-
ligent transportation based on blockchain technology, all ing computing efficiency and related resource utilization,
data sources are directly connected to the network through expanding application fields and service objects, improving
blockchain nodes, and data processing and analysis are data professional analysis ability, and improving system data
completed by the network itself rather than by various reliability.

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D. KEY TECHNOLOGIES OF BLOCKCHAIN IN BIG DATA the application mechanism of data supervision and operation.
PLATFORM FOR URBAN INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION All data blocks are automatically processed, transmitted, and
The main problems to be solved and faced by the big data plat- provided services according to these mechanisms.
form of urban intelligent transportation based on blockchain 3) Blockchain technology is compatible with the Internet
technology are the unification of different data sources, the of Vehicles and vehicle-road collaboration technology. The
unified supervision and operation of data, and the technical Internet of Vehicles is a dynamic mobile communication sys-
compatibility with other advanced technologies. To solve tem that realizes the network communication between vehi-
these problems, the key technologies of blockchain technol- cles and the public through the interaction between vehicles
ogy on the big data platform of urban intelligent transporta- & vehicles, vehicles & roads, vehicles &people, and vehicles
tion are discussed from the perspective of technology. & sensor equipment. In essence, the Internet of Vehicles can
1) Unified technology of each node. The unification of data also be seen as a networked realization of multi-source data
from different sources includes the unification of data for- around vehicles, roads, and people [79], [80]. The key issues
mat, data acquisition frequency, data storage structure, data of the Internet of Vehicles are what data to collect, what
update, modification, etc. The unification of data from other network communication technology to use, and what data
data sources is realized between blocks and data sources, applications to provide.
data layer, and network layer [75]. The data sources of urban Blockchain technology can be directly used for the data
intelligent transportation data blocks are different. To achieve network communication of the Internet of Vehicles as the
the unification of data, first of all, through the supervision technical basis of the Internet of Vehicles data network.
and access server, the network access technical certification It can also be used as the external network link of the data
and technical supervision of the data source are carried out network communication of the Internet of Vehicles when
to ensure that the data source can technically meet the basic meeting the technical compatibility requirements to assist or
standards of network access, and ensure that the data source supplement the various functions of the Internet of Vehicles
can upload data without fault, redundancy, and error during [81], [82], [83], [84]. In addition to realizing the intelligent
the operation process [76], [77], [78]. After that, in-depth perception of people, vehicles, and roads, vehicle-road coor-
analysis is needed to analyze the relationship between data dination is more important to learn system coordination, opti-
provided by different data sources, including source rela- mizing system resource use, and achieving traffic supervision
tionship, logical relationship, value relationship, relevance and operation objectives such as improving road traffic safety
relationship, accuracy comparison, etc. Based on this, the and easing traffic congestion. In addition to the basic data
urban intelligent transportation data block model with unified network functions, blockchain technology’s consensus layer
data is determined, and the data block is constructed. Finally, and contract layer can be used as the basis to ensure system
the blockchain’s data layer and network layer technology are collaboration. In contrast, the incentive layer can achieve the
used to realize the unified storage and transmission of data goal of optimizing the use of system resources.
based on the urban intelligent transportation data block. The sharing of multiple technologies in blockchain tech-
2) Supervision and operation realization of multiple tech- nology can realize automatic supervision and operation.
nology sharing. The big data platform of urban intelligent Therefore, applying blockchain technology to vehicle-road
transportation based on blockchain technology differs from collaboration can achieve various objectives of the vehicle-
the traditional big data platform of urban intelligent trans- road association. The blockchain nodes of the big data plat-
portation. Different organizations supervise the data of the form of urban intelligent transportation based on blockchain
conventional urban intelligent transportation big data plat- technology can theoretically connect different data sources
form and then share it on the platform, which makes it chal- and have technical compatibility [85], [86], [87]. As long as
lenging to achieve unified supervision and operation of data. the data source meets each node’s unified technical standards
The decentralization of the big data platform of urban and requirements, the data source can be connected to the
intelligent transportation based on blockchain technology is network by generating a new blockchain node. Therefore, the
the ‘‘ownership’’ of data, which enables the unified intel- big data platform of urban intelligent transportation based on
ligent management of data after access to the network to blockchain technology is open.
achieve suitable data supervision and automatic operation. 4) Trusted timestamp technology [88]. A trusted times-
Specifically, the unified supervision and operation of data tamp is an electronic certificate issued by the Joint Trust
is realized at the consensus, incentive, contract, and appli- Timestamp Service Center that can prove that a data message
cation layers of the urban intelligent transportation big data (electronic file) exists, is complete, verifiable, and has a
platform of blockchain technology and is the result of the legal effect at a certain point in time. Trusted timestamps are
sharing of multiple technologies. In terms of data supervision mainly used to prevent tampering and subsequent repudiation
and operation, the consensus layer, the incentive layer, the of electronic files and to determine the exact time when
contract layer, and the application layer have respectively electronic files are generated. According to the International
constructed the technical processing mechanism, the resource Electronic Timestamp Standard Specification ‘‘RFC 3161’’,
allocation mechanism, the management rule mechanism, and the essence of a trusted timestamp service is to bind the

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hash value of a user’s electronic data to an authoritative time The development of blockchain technology is driving ITS
source, and on this basis, generate an unforgeable timestamp towards a new mode of transportation operation, manage-
file through a joint trusted timestamp service center digital ment, and service. In the future, traffic management will be
signature. reshaped into AI global decision-making, automatic adjust-
5) Ledger Database [89]. In actual blockchain applications, ment of traffic systems based on travelers’ needs and prefer-
many scenarios do not have a strong demand for decen- ences, and highly developed mobile internet and intelligence.
tralization, but they only want their tamper-proof, traceable, It can be predicted that the intelligent traffic management
transparent, and auditable features. Based on this, Alibaba system will gradually rely on blockchain technology, big
Cloud has designed LedgerDB, a centralized ledger database data perception, and artificial intelligence decision-making to
that cannot be tampered with. Ledger DB is more lightweight provide customized and highly intelligent services for traffic
than the heavy licensing chain and has a high throughput managers and travelers, as follows and shown in Figure 7.
(up to 80 times that of Hyperledger Fabric). It also supports
strong auditing, which can simultaneously prevent DB users
and service providers from committing crimes to meet the A. KEY FEATURES OF THE NEW GENERATION
demand for ledger expansion, Ledger DB can delete historical INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION
data but still ensure the verifiability of the data. Moreover, Intelligent transportation will be based on big data,
it can ‘‘modify historical data’’ (which seems to violate the blockchain, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things
essence of blockchain but is indeed the requirement of real to build an urban traffic management ecosystem with mobile
scenarios). Some already linked data has problems (such as connectivity, collaborative control & intelligent services and
non-compliance), and it needs to be hidden later. comprehensively improve the traditional Intelligent Trans-
portation Systems [92], [93], [94]. In the future, cities will
V. CONSTRUCTION CONCEPT OF NEW GENERATION present the key features of mobile awareness of global infor-
INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS mation, smart governance of traffic decision-making, and
The new generation of Intelligent Transportation Systems accurate customization of travel services, including training
(ITS) is a new type of intelligent transportation ecosystem application blockchain AI is the driving force for entering the
that is guided by the balance of urban traffic supply and era of intelligent transportation and industry 4.0 [95].
demand, based on the in-depth perception and research, 1) As a complex and multi-dimensional physical network,
and analysis of urban traffic travel characteristics, realizes urban transportation in the future should have the ability to
the cross-department collaborative decision-making of urban global information perception and gather massive, heteroge-
traffic management through advanced technologies such as neous, and complex big data such as automatic data collection
blockchain and artificial intelligence, and can dynamically by front-end equipment, manual data collection, administra-
optimize the matching of urban traffic supply and traffic tive data collection, shared data collection, and data provided
demand space-time resources through self-learning and opti- by the public voluntarily. Utilize advanced block, mobile
mization. As a new generation of Intelligent Transportation internet, Internet of Things, and other information technolo-
Systems (ITS), the construction of the traffic brain serves gies to sense the real-time status information of road, vehicle,
the needs of fully automatic and accurate traffic manage- traveler, facility, and other elements in the massive mul-
ment is applied to solve the persistent problems of urban tiple data, realize cross-level, cross-domain, cross-system,
traffic, which helps greatly improve the efficiency of traffic cross-business information exchange, and break the current
operation, and injects new vitality and intelligence into the situation of information management and split operation,
development of urban traffic industry [90]. realize the interactivity of intelligent transportation informa-
Traditional Intelligent Transportation Systems emphasize tion exchange and the universality of information application,
hardware construction in the development process. At the for the sake of accuracy Customized traffic management and
same time, the system control strategy needs a lot of human travel services provide a data awareness platform.
resources invested in the implementation process, which can 2) In the future, smart transportation will deeply integrate
not realize the auxiliary implementation of automation. The blockchain, artificial intelligence, deep learning, and other
lag effect is evident in the long-term urban traffic manage- technologies with traffic management, with strong cognitive
ment process [91]. In the face of the unprecedented travel and learning abilities, and be able to continuously self-
pressure of the current city and the new opportunities brought learning and self-evolution in the process of business process-
by the rise of the new generation of information technology ing to adapt to the changing and complex traffic development
such as blockchain, big data, cloud computing for the devel- situation. It has changed the previous empirical decision-
opment of intelligent transportation, and construction of the making mode of solving traffic problems and formed a
new generation of the intelligent transportation system has highly automated command & decision-making system that
become an inevitable choice for the development of the times integrates perception and prediction, decision-making and
and the construction of smart new forms of urban transporta- management, and evaluation services. It can complete the
tion. It also frees urban planners and managers from heavy refined perception of the traffic situation and laws, intelligent
business processing and creates immediate control benefits. decision-making of traffic control schemes, accurate analysis

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FIGURE 6. Foshan intelligent transportation systems.

B. BRAIN STRUCTURE OF FUTURE URBAN INTELLIGENT

TRANSPORTATION
With the enrichment and improvement of the vast and com-
plex urban intelligent transportation management system,
building the urban intelligent transportation brain will be
the trend of intelligent transportation development in a city,
especially in a developing country.
Under the background of the rapid development of a new
generation of information and intelligence technologies such
as big data, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, the urban
intelligent transportation brain is to comprehensively acquire,
deeply analyze, comprehensively study and judge, intelli-
gently generate countermeasures, precise decision-making,
and system application of urban and urban transportation-
related information through comprehensive intelligence such
FIGURE 7. Top-level architecture of intelligent transportation brain in yun
as human-like brain’s perception, cognition, coordination,
city based on blockchain. learning, control, decision-making, feedback, and innovation
Cyclic optimization is the core hub of Urban Intelligent
and optimization of traffic services, and liberate the limited Transportation Systems(UITS) better to realize the gover-
police resources investment based on the global shared big nance and service of urban traffic, solve the problems of
data. It will enable the intelligent mode to cover the whole urban traffic and provide systematic and comprehensive ser-
business field of traffic control. vices. Therefore, its construction needs to follow the top-level
3) Using the intelligent information interconnection and scientific, establish hierarchical construction objectives, and
sharing mechanism, intelligent transportation can trace the achieve various functional requirements with the goal as the
travelers’ personal preferences in the future and provide more guide. Based on the latest technology’s application status and
personalized directional service information for travelers in development trend, the pilot overall planning of the future
combination with real-time perception and prediction of the traffic management function is carried out.
traffic operation status of the road network. At the same time, The urban intelligent transportation brain will form a
we will improve the ability of comprehensive travel informa- top-level structure of ‘‘one cloud and four centers,’’ inte-
tion service to cover the whole chain, mode & region, achieve grating the transportation cloud, perception center, analysis
real-time, diversified & accurate information queries, and center, decision-making center, and evaluation center. Based
release and intelligent feedback throughout the process. Make on blockchain technology, the Brain Traffic Cloud is respon-
full use of the holographic information perception tentacles sible for interconnecting and sharing all reliable and safe
of intelligent transportation, integrate travel guidance and blockchain distribution data provided by the existing business
traffic police control business, and promote the optimization systems of traffic police and other parts and managing and
and improvement of urban, comprehensive decision-making, dispatching all business centers. The perception, analysis,
facility construction, demand regulation, and other aspects decision-making, and evaluation centers are the basic engines
based on individual travel behavior. for realizing various functions of the intelligent transportation

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brain. They respectively undertake the important functions urban transportation systems [98], creating an advanced and
of global perception, real-time analysis, intelligent decision- practical urban ‘‘intelligent transportation brain,’’ making
making, and scientific evaluation. a world-leading Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems
The perception center relies on blockchain, big data tech- (UITS), achieving high-level vehicle and road coordination,
nology and other holographic perception of urban traffic improving the intelligent level of passenger and freight trans-
conditions to realize multi-level, all-time and even node- portation services [99], achieving intelligent, comprehensive
level comprehensive perception of traffic facilities, traffic transportation, solving traffic congestion with the help of a
demand and traffic operation situation; Through blockchain high degree of intelligence, improving the safety level, and
technology, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the achieving green traffic dominance.
analysis center supports the analysis of abnormal condition Prospects of future Urban Intelligent Transportation
such as traffic congestion mechanism analysis and judg- Systems (UITS) is an urban transportation strategy and
ment, traffic incident research and review, and early warning, countermeasure system composed of urban land use form
and real-time deduces and predicts the space-time passenger adjustment, urban transportation structure adjustment, urban
flow characteristics and traffic operation status; The deci- road network structure optimization, and urban road system
sion center builds a closed-loop control mechanism for the right-of-way adjustment. It should serve urban develop-
coordinated operation of ‘‘perception - analysis - decision - ment planning and comprehensive transportation develop-
evaluation’’ of traffic big data, and provides the formulation, ment planning. To do a good job in the construction of the
distribution and resource allocation of comprehensive traffic Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS), we should
management solutions, as well as visual scheme and whole- attach great importance to the top-level design of the Intel-
process tracking and supervision; The evaluation center uses ligent Transportation Systems (ITS), adhere to the principle
the traffic simulation technology and mathematical model to of traffic infrastructure and traffic engineering facilities con-
track the characteristics and evolution trend of traffic oper- struction first, not only pay attention to the hardware con-
ation under the multi-class status quo and optimized traffic struction of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) but
control measures, carefully evaluate the implementation plan also pay attention to the software development and function
and identify the existing problems, and support the travel improvement of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).
planning and guidance services based on real-time traffic The construction of Urban Intelligent Transportation Sys-
conditions and behavior analysis, intelligent parking guid- tems (UITS) in the future should focus on realizing functions
ance services, and the sharing and real-time release of various and be problem-oriented [100]. It should be both progres-
types of traffic information. sive and practical. The first key to developing an Intelligent
In the future, the urban intelligent traffic brain will real- Transportation System is to achieve the expected function
ize brain-like reasoning and decision-making to assist urban and actual application effect rather than the system con-
management, traffic control [96], and public travel services struction itself. The structure of Intelligent Transportation
based on blockchain, big data, artificial intelligence, and Systems should be fully demonstrated by experts, interviewed
other new generation information technologies, cultivate the by citizens, and analyzed by construction effect. Clear sys-
self-learning, self-evolution ability of the traffic brain and tem objectives, clear acceptance criteria, sufficient expert
continuously improve its intelligence so that it can realize argumentation, and a perfect post-evaluation system are the
closed-loop intelligent management of autonomous percep- basic requirements to ensure the healthy development of ITS.
tion, intelligent analysis, intelligent decision-making [97], We should speed up the introduction of relevant standards and
and scientific evaluation in some application businesses in specifications, form a perfect system, guide the construction
the long-term stage, It provides comprehensive and intelligent of an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), and avoid
services for the future development of the city, traffic business decision-making mistakes and investment waste.
management and public travel. Although the Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems
(UITS) integrated with blockchain technology has a good
VI. FUTURE PROSPECTS development prospect, blockchain technology still has some
This survey paper has covered blockchain technology and potential security risks. For example: 1) 51% of attacks [101].
Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS) integra- When the malicious attack node of the entire network holds
tion architecture model in developing countries. Intelligent 51% of the total computing power, it can attack the whole
Transportation Systems (ITS) are the key to improving network and maliciously alter or delete the general ledger.
the efficiency, service quality, safety level, environmental 2) Anonymity issues [102]. Although the cryptography prin-
protection, and energy conservation of the transportation ciples used in the current blockchain seem impregnable,
system. Relying on the new generation of information tech- if the key is acquired or stolen, no third party can help
nology, such as blockchain and big data, Intelligent Trans- retrieve it. And with the emergence of quantum computing,
portation Systems in developing countries will achieve rapid the encryption key may be quickly cracked, thus destroying
development, and the level of intelligence will be signifi- the foundation of the blockchain. 3) Illegal attack [103].
cantly improved. The future development of intelligent trans- In the blockchain mesh structure, malicious nodes will inter-
portation will focus on building a sharing platform for cept new blocks’ work and transaction processing and even

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disconnect the entry registration channel with the network. [11] A. Lamssaggad, N. Benamar, A. S. Hafid, and M. Msahli, ‘‘A survey on
Malicious nodes may also block the new blocks created by the current security landscape of intelligent transportation systems,’’ IEEE
Access, vol. 9, pp. 9180–9208, 2021.
other nodes so that the main chain can only link the blocks [12] L. Qi, ‘‘Research on intelligent transportation systems technologies and
created by itself. Therefore, there is still a long way to go applications,’’ in Proc. Workshop Power Electron. Intell. Transp. Syst.,
to build Urban Intelligent Transportation Systems (UITS) in 2008, pp. 529–531.
developing countries in the future. [13] S.-H. An, B.-H. Lee, and D.-R. Shin, ‘‘A survey of intelligent transportation
systems,’’ in Proc. IEEE 3rd Int. Conf. Comput. Intell., Commun. Syst.
Netw., Jul. 2011, pp. 332–337.
VII. CONCLUSION [14] N.-E.-E. Faouzi, H. Leung, and A. Kurian, ‘‘Data fusion in intelligent
The development of blockchain, big data, artificial intelli- transportation systems: Progress and challenges—A survey,’’ Inf. Fusion,
vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 4–10, Jan. 2011.
gence technology, and other technologies has led to the inno-
[15] J. Zhang, F.-Y. Wang, K. Wang, W.-H. Lin, X. Xu, and C. Chen, ‘‘Data-
vation of urban government management, traffic police traffic driven intelligent transportation systems: A survey,’’ IEEE Trans. Intell.
management, and resident travel service, which can improve Transp. Syst., vol. 12, no. 4, pp. 1624–1639, Dec. 2011.
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XINGCHENG GUO (Member, IEEE) received
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the master’s degree from Sun Yat-sen Univer-
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and Y. Li, ‘‘Ubiquitous verification in centralized ledger database,’’ in neer with the China’s Ministry of Industry and
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