Enhancing Blockchain-based Ride-Sharing Services using IPFS

•A decentralized ride-sharing system is proposed and a prototype of it is implemented as a decentralized application (DApp) on the top of Ethereum, a real-world public blockchain platform, to allow users to access the system in a decentralized manner.•Following that, this paper proposed the integration of IPFS with the blockchain in the proposed system. For that, a proposed methodology is presented which provide a complete scenario of how to integrate IPFS and blockchain in RSS.•In the proposed system, we build and deploy a smart contract, and we investigate the expenses incurred by employing such design for both drivers and riders.•This smart contract is evaluated by deploying it to a local network Ganache.•Lastly, extensive evaluation of the proposed system has been performed. Our experimental results demonstrate the scalability, verifiability, and superior performance of the proposed ride-sharing system. Ride-sharing services (RSSs) using centralization methods experience various challenges like single point-of-failure, privacy violation, lack of security, and distributed denial of services (DDoS) attack, etc. So, blockchain-based RSSs mitigate such problems through decentralization. Relying on the blockchain only leads to problems such as increase in application response time, chain size, and a high computational cost due to the increase in data storage in blockchain and thus increase the service costs to end users. Additionally, the blockchain lacks to scalability of data because of the inability to store large-sized data and accommodate the grows of ride-sharing data. To overcome these problems, a novel decentralized ride-sharing system that exploits blockchain and Interplanetary File System (IPFS) is proposed. The goal of the proposed system is to move all ride-sharing data outside the blockchain and replacing it with a small hash. The blockchain manages the application state and users. In addition, it automates processes through smart contracts. While the IPFS stores data for blockchain in immutable and integral way. Wherefore, the proposed ride-sharing system integrates IPFS with blockchain for RSSs to retain the provided assurance by the blockchain and provide efficient service to end users. Experimental results proved the applicability and efficiency of RSS based on blockchain and IPFS which provides efficient storage of ride-sharing data, immutable history, and generally better efficiency in a decentralized manner.