Vehicles which are the nodes in VANETs are equipped with powerful resources to enable the safe and quick dissemination of information for reliable and trusty intelligent transportation system. These resources of vehicles can be utilized for providing support to various other new VANETs applications for enhancing the driving experience, reducing the road congestions, accidents and to promote pollution-free ITS. In order to support and promote the abovementioned tasks, a concept of vehicular cloud is getting a lot of attention nowadays. Introduction of VANETs cloud has led to the expansion in the perimeter of the capabilities of VANETs and ITS by enabling newer types of collaborations between the vehicles and also given rise to a plethora of emerging applications and services. In this study, an in-depth review covering all the possible aspects associated with VANETs cloud has been explored. To begin with, concepts like architectures, communication types supported in VANETs cloud has been analyzed. A motivation explaining the need of VANETs cloud in today’s scenario has been briefly overviewed. Then, a detailed comparison illustrating the similarities and differences between the VANETs cloud and its parent’s network i.e. VANETs is presented. In this article, our main focus is on finding the various applications that will be supported by VANETs cloud. Various challenges in terms of security, deployment and in the use of VANETs cloud has been explored. Finally, applicability of VANETs cloud with various emerging technologies like IoT, software defined networks, and cognitive radio in terms of their applications, challenges, issues, and benefits has been presented in this article. This study on the collaboration of VANETs and cloud is believed to assist the researchers working on this field to find out the current status of research in VANETs clouds along with the challenges that one can face during its deployment.

作为VANET中的节点的车辆配备有强大的资源，可以安全，快速地发布信息，以实现可靠，可信赖的智能交通系统。这些车辆资源可用于为各种其他新的VANET应用程序提供支持，以增强驾驶体验，减少道路拥堵，事故并促进无污染ITS。为了支持和促进上述任务，车辆云的概念正在引起当今的广泛关注。VANET云的引入通过启用车辆之间的新型协作类型，导致VANET和ITS功能范围的扩展，并且也带来了大量新兴应用程序和服务。在这个研究中，已经探索了涵盖与VANET云相关的所有可能方面的深入评论。首先，分析了VANET云中支持的架构，通信类型等概念。简要概述了在当今情况下解释VANETs云需求的动机。然后，进行了详细的比较，说明了VANET云与其父级网络（即VANET）之间的异同。在本文中，我们的主要重点是查找VANET云将支持的各种应用程序。在安全性，部署和VANET云的使用方面，已经探索了各种挑战。最终，VANETs云在各种新兴技术（如物联网，软件定义的网络和认知无线电）的适用性，应用，挑战，问题，并在本文中介绍了好处。相信这项有关VANET和云的协作的研究可以帮助从事该领域的研究人员了解VANET云的研究现状以及在部署期间可能面临的挑战。