A method for determining a transmission channel for multi-hop transmission of a data packet from a plurality of data channels in an ad-hoc network. The network includes at least one local peer group. Each local peer group has a plurality of moving vehicles as nodes. The method comprises steps of determining available channels for data packet transmission at each node, transmitting a first list of available channels to at least one other node, receiving, from the at least one other node, a second list of available channel for the at least one other node, creating an available channel table including the first and second lists of available channels, selecting a transmitting channel for a data packet based upon information in the available channel table, and advertising the selected channel to the at least one other node.