Blockchain-driven autonomous internet of auto in smart cities in India: A secure and intelligent framework for next-generation urban mobility

Transportation infrastructure in smart cities of developing urban environments is confronted with endemic issues associated with traffic congestion, cybersecurity, scalability, intermittent connectivity, and weak interoperability with legacy infrastructure, and most current blockchain-based and AI-based vehicular frameworks assume stable conditions in the network environment and homogeneous traffic, which limits their application to the real world. In order to fill these gaps, the current paper suggests a concept of the Blockchain-Driven Autonomous Internet of Auto (B-AIoA) framework, a decentralized and edge-based architecture, which incorporates blockchain, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things technologies to facilitate secure and intelligent urban mobility. The basic innovation of B-AIoA is the Hybrid Consensus Protocol for Intermittent Connectivity (HCP-IC), which dynamically implements consensus execution depending on real-time network availability to guarantee reliable operation in changing connectivity, and auxiliary features such as edge-centric workload distribution, blockchain-native Operational Design Domain (ODD) parameter dissemination, vehicular cybersecurity enhanced by AI, and transportation-specific smart contracting autonomous decision-making, transparent transactions, and complying with regulatory requirements. The framework was deployed and tested after eight months using three Indian smart cities, with experimental results showing a better level of robustness during intermittency networks, scalability during high-density traffic conditions, and greater effectiveness of cybersecurity, lower cost of operations due to automation and better mobility outcomes in urban environments than conventional and state of art solutions, confirming a B-AIoA as a viable, scalable, and deployment-ready solution to next-generation smart transportation systems in developing urban settings. • B-AIoA framework integrates blockchain, AI, IoT for secure autonomous urban mobility. • 23.7% congestion reduction, 17.2% emissions cut, 31% safety gain in Indian cities. • Hybrid consensus achieves 94.7% functionality amid intermittent connectivity. • Edge computing yields 8.3 ms latency for safety-critical tasks (45% improvement). • Smart contracts ensure 99.2% regulatory compliance for tolls, ride-sharing.