Next-generation intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are envisioned to greatly improve the transportation safety and efficiency by incorporating wireless communication and informatics technologies in the transportation system [1–3]. As the cornerstone for ITS, vehicular communication networks enable vehicles to exchange information with other vehicles and the external environments and play a significant role in supporting a variety of services such as road safety, traffic management, and entertainment Vehicular communication networks face many technical challenges such as network scalability, highly dynamic topology, vulnerable wireless links, energy consumption of roadside units, poor network coverage, and bursty traffic. To address these challenges, various emerging technologies have been introduced in vehicular communication networks, such as software defined space-air-ground integrated vehicular network [4], fog computing in vehicular networks [5], drone-assisted vehicular networks [6], and machine learning for data delivery [7]. This special issue collection aims to present the vision, research, and dedicated efforts on the emerging technologies for vehicular communication networks. In this special issue, there are 15 submissions in total. After peer-review, 6 papers are selected for publication. ; Next-generation intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are envisioned to greatly improve the transportation safety and efficiency by incorporating wireless communication and informatics technologies in the transportation system [1–3]. As the cornerstone for ITS, vehicular communication networks enable vehicles to exchange information with other vehicles and the external environments and play a significant role in supporting a variety of services such as road safety, traffic management, and entertainment Vehicular communication networks face many technical challenges such as network scalability, highly dynamic topology, vulnerable wireless links, energy consumption of roadside units, poor network coverage, ...