Abstract
Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are the preferable choice for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) because of its prevailing significance in both safety and nonsafety applications. Information dissemination in a multihop fashion along with privacy preservation of source node is a serious but challenging issue. We have used the idea of the phantom node as the next forwarder for data dissemination. The phantom node (vehicle) hides the identity of actual source node thus preserving the location privacy. The selection of the phantom node among the set of alternatives’ candidate vehicles is considered as a multicriteria-based problem. The phantom node selection problem is solved by using an analytical network process (ANP) by considering different traffic scenarios. The selection is based on different parameters which are distance, speed, trust, acceleration, and direction. The best alternative (target phantom vehicle) is selected through an ANP where all the alternatives are ranked from best to worst. The vehicle having maximum weight is considered to be the best choice as a phantom node. In order to check the stability of the alternatives’ ranking, sensitivity analysis is performed by taking into account different traffic scenarios and interest level of candidate vehicles.