Vehicular ad hoc networks have gained importance since their advent in 1998 and the technology has been having an exponential growth in contribution towards its betterment and stability. VANET allows local communication between vehicles and infrastructure along the road. Every vehicle shares critical information with every other vehicle in its vicinity for ensuring passenger safety and also allows access to Internet for multimedia entertainment. With all such applications and features, VANET has its own share of insecurities and limitations. Many successful attempts have been made in the last decade to solve the identified problems, but with rapid advancements in technology, the complexity of security solutions and network architectures increase despite having a solution for all kinds of problems. Therefore, it is necessary to simplify the existing VANET and begin working on alternate concepts that use existing technologies and protocols. A concept called lane monitoring system uses passive infrastructure along roadway and attempts to evolve them to fulfil the needs of evolving mobility solutions. © 2021, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.