Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Digital transformation has created a wide number of challenges in all emerging fields such as smart urban city, IoT, Smart Systems (Memon & Awan, 2017). Even, transportation is one from those emerging fields that is enhanced and improved into smart transportation. In addition, this emerging field gave birth to diverse challenges of transportation such as overcrowding, disaster, public transportation, vehicular traffic, freight, and pedestrian traffic). Besides this, smart transportation is also integrated with digital systems to provide better and intelligent routes to transport. Smart transportation includes information dissemination, sensing, traffic control and communication as integrated sub systems to develop an enhanced system. This enhanced system comprises of three important components such as data/information analysis, transmission of data or information, and collection of data. Collection of data is an initial and primary component, which gathers information of connected smart vehicles such as route, traffic, number of vehicles front/left/right/behind, passenger’s ratio, interconnected network of road and connecting or link roads. However, Inductive loop detectors and pneumatic tubes (Soriguera & Robusté, 2011) are used to collect basic information such as speed, passing of vehicles. These methods or techniques are least applicable because of impact on traffic and high implementation cost while implementation process. Advanced technology such as imaging and sensing is also part of modern digital systems. Even these systems implemented RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and video cameras in traffic systems while collecting primary data of interconnected vehicles and their systems. The collected data via Video cameras are being analyzed to determine the speed, vehicle types, and traffic flow. Data or Information analysis is second main component of smart transportation system. Thus, the aim of this component is to provide transport related information, which is gathered via inductive loop detectors and other sensors. Previously, pre-calibrated and predefined models are most adopted models to evaluate traffic conditions along with required response. At last, the data/information transmission is the third and final component of smart transportation, which links collected data with servers or operation centers to provide control measures to drivers, travelers and emerged infrastructures. Nowadays, a cloud platforms is a better choice for the transmission and sharing of information among vehicle drivers, critical infrastructures and operation mangers or centers (Sumalee & Wai, 2018). Due to the development in smart urban city across the globe, STS become significant infrastructure that is vulnerable to both cyber and physical risks/threats. Smart vehicles are a core component of STS, which may either be a vulnerable point or cyber target on the network of STS. The security of smart vehicles is an emerging challenge for security experts and adversaries. Hence, security experts provide mitigation approaches to protect from the target of adversaries, who try to weaken the security systems via creating/identifying vulnerabilities. The ongoing research has identified the potential for cyber activists to hack the control of physical network of STS, where the reliability, privacy, efficiency, safety, and protection of the STS is being compromised (Kelarestaghi, Foruhandeh, Heaslip, & Gerdes, 2018)(Shaukat et al., 2018a). Thus, this research suggested and proposed a framework for the improvement in security of STS, which is covered in a detailed discussion in solution section 5. The structure of this paper comprises seven sections. Section I introduces basic information of smart transportation system and emerging challenges. Section II gives a brief review of related work done in this field or STS. Section III further discusses STS, its application and working mechanism (means how it works). Section IV discusses main primary parameters of the proposed framework of STS, which needs to be focused while designing or implementing such systems. Section V identifies the emerging vulnerabilities to STS. These vulnerabilities needs to be addressed, as cyber activists may target them in future and may provides the solution of emerged issues and challenges in STS. Section VI discussed some open challenges may rise in the development and implementation of STS. At last, Section VII concludes the whole research.