A decentralized IoT and blockchain-based architecture for general-purpose vehicle speed data collection: a case study of Tanzania’s highways

Abstract This study addresses the limitations of Tanzania’s current vehicle speed detection systems, which are mostly manual, costly, and vulnerable to corruption. Existing automated systems are limited in scope and depend on centralized architectures, making them prone to data manipulation. To overcome these issues, this study proposes a novel four-layer decentralized architecture that integrates Internet of things (IoT) and blockchain technologies, offering a secure, transparent, and automated solution tailored to the Tanzanian context. The system supports the collection of general-purpose speed data and utilizes hyperledger fabric (HLF) channels to ensure confidentiality and privacy. A proof-of-concept was tested in parallel mode, achieving a latency of 1 s, throughput of 1 record/s, and an error rate of 0.07% under varying record loads. When scaling the number of nodes (NN), it maintained 3 s latency, 0.4 records/s throughput, and 7.5% error rate, demonstrating a 50% latency reduction and over double the throughput compared with sequential and asynchronous modes. Future research should explore the integration of 5G for further improvements.