Decentralized Trust Model for Vehicle Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs) with 5G Integration: A Blockchain-Based Approach for Enhanced Security and Privacy in Intelligent Transportation Systems
Vehicle Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) face critical challenges in trust management, privacy preservation, and scalability, particularly with the integration of 5G networks in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). Traditional centralized trust models present single points of failure and privacy concerns that compromise network security and user anonymity. This paper presents a novel decentralized trust model leveraging blockchain technology, Interplanetary File System (IPFS) integration, and post-quantum cryptographic algorithms to address these limitations. Our proposed TrustChain-VANET framework implements advanced privacy-preserving encryption techniques including threshold and homomorphic encryption, geographical sharding for scalability, and edge-assisted consensus mechanisms. Performance evaluation demonstrates significant improvements: 40% reduction in authentication latency (90–120 ms vs. 150–300 ms), 90% malicious node detection rate (+15% improvement), 300% increase in transaction throughput (2000–2150 TPS), and 100% scalability enhancement supporting up to 5000 nodes. The system integrates seamlessly with 5G network slicing (URLLC, eMBB, mMTC) while maintaining quantum resistance through CRYSTALS-Dilithium, KYBER, and FALCON algorithms. Real-world deployment considerations including OBU computational constraints, standardization gaps, and energy efficiency are comprehensively analyzed. Results indicate that the proposed decentralized approach provides robust security, enhanced privacy, and improved scalability for next-generation vehicular networks, making it suitable for large-scale ITS deployment. The main contribution of this work is the development of a unified TrustChain-VA 48NET framework. The proposed framework integrates blockchain-based trust management, IPFS-assisted storage, 5G network slicing, Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), geographical sharding, and post-quantum cryptographic mechanisms within a single architecture for next-generation VANET environments. While these technologies have been investigated separately in previous studies, this work presents a consolidated framework that analyzes their interoperability, identifies integration challenges, and evaluates their combined impact on trust management, scalability, privacy preservation, and deployment feasibility in Intelligent Transportation Systems.