# A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of In-Vehicle Communication Protocols
## 4 Discussion
These studies highlight the ever-increasing challenge of creating impenetrable systems, especially with the advanced availability of fully automated and semi-automated vehicles. At the same time, the literature published in _Accident Analysis & Prevention_ is increasingly linking cybersecurity with road safety outcomes, symbolizing the intersection of transportation engineering and cybersecurity [2]. Another prominent and significant development is the use of AI in-vehicle systems, not only for driving but also for real-time threat monitoring and detection, as well as for self-adaptive communication systems. [PERSON] and [PERSON] have been increasingly focused on AI-based systems that monitor and neutralize cyber threats in real time, demonstrating an emerging trend of proactive rather than reactive security. The growing rate of co-citation of publications concentrating on data governance, ethics, and privacy affects user trust. It signals a shift toward an emerging mature field concerned with technological viability and social consequences. This data curation procedure suggests that future studies will focus more on in-depth tiered frameworks that include a combination of technical accuracy, dynamic functionality, compliance with standards, system usability design, and human-centered design. Overall, the findings indicate that there is a field with coordinated and clear direction, which is complex, evolving, and still developing opportunities, balanced by established research, new insights, and pressing real-world needs. One of the core contributions of this study is its broad and multifaceted bibliometric scope. Unlike prior reviews--such as [PERSON] [18], which centers on V2V security protocols, or [PERSON] et al. [33], which focuses narrowly on handover techniques--our study provides an integrated analysis of technical, thematic, and geographical trends across a larger corpus of the literature. Notably, this work brings attention to relatively underexplored subdomains such as TSN and CAN FD, where bibliometric clustering reveals gaps in security-focused research despite their technological significance. These insights provide actionable direction for scholars and practitioners aiming to address next-generation vehicular communication challenges. To further clarify how this work differentiates itself from the recent literature reviews in the field, Table 4 compares the scope, dataset, and methodological approaches of our study with other representative works. This study advances the existing body of research by presenting the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis that integrates co-authorship, keyword co-occurrence, and co-citation networks across the five dominant in-vehicle communication protocols (CAN, LIN, FlexRay, MOST, and Automotive Ethernet), covering the period from 2018 to early 2025. Unlike prior works that focused narrowly on single protocols or limited metrics, \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{56.9 pt} p{56.9 pt} p{56.9 pt} p{56.9 pt} p{56.9 pt} p{56.9 pt}} \hline \hline
**Study** & **Focus** & **Time Range** & **Methodology** & **Dataset Size** & **Novelty Compared to Our Work** \\ \hline [PERSON] (2024) [18] & Security in V2V Communication & \(\sim\)2010–2023 & Qualitative Review & \(\sim\)150 papers & Narrow focus, no co-citation or network analysis \\ [PERSON] et al. (2024) [33] & Handover Management in Vehicular Comms & \(\sim\)2015–2023 & Survey & \(\sim\)100 papers & Specialized focus, no bibliometric scope \\  & Comprehensive review of in-vehicle protocols & 2018–2025 & Bibliometric co-citation, co-authorship, keyword clustering & 2919 papers & Broad scope, visual network analysis, emerging trend detection \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Comparison of this study with recent bibliometric and review papers on in-vehicle communication protocols and intelligent transportation systems. Our work demonstrates broader coverage, integration of multiple bibliometric methods, and focus on emerging research directions.