Vehicle as a Service (VaaS): Leverage Vehicles to Build Service Networks and Capabilities for Smart Cities

Smart cities demand resources for rich immersive sensing, ubiquitous communications, powerful computing, large storage, and high intelligence (SCCSI) to support various kinds of applications, such as public safety, connected and autonomous driving, smart and connected health, and smart living. At the same time, vehicles equipped with significantly powerful SCCSI capabilities are expected to become ubiquitous in future smart cities. By observing the convergence of these two trends, this article advocates the use of vehicles to build a cost-effective service network, where SCCSI-empowered vehicles form a web of mobile sensors, a grid of mobile servers, a network of mobile routers, a fleet of mobile storage, and a set of AI toolboxes, to provide SCCSI services in smart cities. This paradigm is called Vehicle as a Service (VaaS). Towards this goal, this article first examines the potential use cases in smart cities and possible upgrades required for the transition from traditional vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) to VaaS. Then, the system architecture and use cases of the VaaS paradigm are comprehensively elaborated. Finally, the open problems of this paradigm and future research directions, including architectural design, service provisioning, incentive design, and security & privacy, are identified. This position paper is expected to pave the way towards developing a cost-effective and sustainable approach for smart cities and offer a complementary alternative for 5G and beyond.