Vehicular social networks: Enabling smart mobility

Vehicular transportation is an essential part of modern cities. However, the ever increasing number of road accidents, traffic congestion, and other such issues become obstacles for the realization of smart cities. As the integration of the Internet of Vehicles and social networks, vehicular social networks (VSNs) are promising to solve the above-mentioned problems by enabling smart mobility in modern cities, which are likely to pave the way for sustainable development by promoting transportation efficiency. In this article, the definition of and a brief introduction to VSNs are presented first. Existing supporting communication technologies are then summarized. Furthermore, we introduce an application scenario on trajectory data-analysis-based traffic anomaly detection for VSNs. Finally, several research challenges and open issues are highlighted and discussed.