Abstract Due to a large number of vehicles, traffic accidents, road congestion, and fuel consumption, pollution has become a serious global issue. In the past years, autonomous and self-configured Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) has become the key research topic due to the increasing demand for road safety and management. As a result, VANET technologies are applied to the different areas of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to regulate these problems and make traffic safer. This work aims to provide an overview of vehicular ad hoc networks and to present the aspects related to this field to help researchers and developers to understand the main features of VANET technology. We mainly focus on communication technology research, protocol usage and data routing. The paper also represents the main profiles and purposes of VANET technology and provides a security outline of this technology.