Nowadays the lack of interaction between vehicles and their control systems is the primary concern in modern cities when it comes the time to improve the road use and vehicular security. To solve this problem it's necessary a fast and proper deployment of intelligent transport systems in vehicular environments. These systems were designed to improve the security systems and optimize the management of increased traffic on roads which translates in the protection of pedestrians, drivers and passengers and they have become a useful and smart way to save cost when deploying road infrastructure whether in big or small cities. This document aims to develop a collection, organization and presentation of information related to the state of the art in the development of technologies, standards and applications for the communications systems in vehicular environments. This information includes the motivations for creating them, the fields of action in which such systems could be useful, the benefits they provide through their different applications and the scientific production centers that are responsible for their evolution and improvement. Keywords-Vehicular ad hoc networks; WAVE; CALM; Intelligent transport systems; Vehicular environments; Security. I. INTRODUCTIONIntelligent Transport Systems (ITS) are defined as information, communication and control systems operating in the field of road transport. These systems operate in the urban and rural areas, and allow the use of innovative services and applications according to the type of transportation, the type of information (user information, traffic flow information, security information) and the type of services (emergency services, commercial services). These systems are the result of the mixture of communication, navigation and information technologies with transport systems.In this kind of system, each vehicle takes the role of sender, receiver, and router to transmit information to the vehicular network. This network can be formed by other vehicles, roads and fixed infrastructure. In other words, these are systems where vehicles interact among themselves and with the surrounding infrastructure. This kind of interaction helps to improve the security, capacity and use of road systems, reducing risks in the transportation and considerably improving the driving experience.This article is divided into four sections. The first one is about vehicular ad hoc networks, the second one deals with technologies and standards, the third one will focus on scientific development and the future work needed to achieve the improvement of these systems and at last some conclusions are proposed about the discussed issue. II. VEHICULAR AD HOC NETWORKSThe Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are a way to implement ITS communications. VANET is a specific type of Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) that provides communication between adjacent vehicles or nearby vehicles and communication infrastructure. It's decentralized and autoconfigurable, the network forming is dynamic and spontaneous betwee...