A Smart Contract Based Secure Ride Sharing System

Abstract

A ride-sharing system provides many advantages. It reduces energy consumption. Moreover, it mitigates traffic congestion. Furthermore, it provides benefits to drivers and passengers in that they share travel costs (gas, toll ticket). Ride-sharing has been getting very popular since the COVID-19 pandemic. Since COVID-19 is very contagious and spread by infected people via coughs, sneezes, or talking, people avoid using public transportation to get the disease. People prefer to travel with a few people to protect their health. To prevent people from getting the disease and to have the advantages of a ride-sharing system, we introduce a ride-sharing system in which a driver only travels with a passenger for each event. Traveling with only one person provides advantages to both the driver and passenger. The driver (passenger) not only shares the cost of the trip but also reduces the risk of getting or spreading the disease. This paper proposes a smart-contract-based ride-sharing system that uses a $Vickrey$ (second highest bid) auction mechanism during a pandemic to determine the passenger. The system provides a decentralized, transparent, trackable, verifiable, and secure ride-sharing with the help of consortium blockchain. Using smart contracts in the system allows users’ bids to be transparent and verifiable. Furthermore, the proposed system provides a secure and lightweight mechanism to protect users' (drivers and passengers) travel data (locations and cost of travel). Their travel data for each event is going to be unlinkable.