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Vehicle traffic in large cities is increasing every day. Despite the significant development of telecommunications, communication between such vehicles must still evolve to make mobility smarter. Many studies have been carried out to enable a network between vehicles and computational infrastructures, called Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs). Within the context of VANETs, traffic lights can play an important role in exchanging information with vehicles to reduce congestion. Intelligent traffic lights aim to manage intersections in urban traffic and avoid idle roads. Several research topics have already been explored related to smart traffic control such as network latency, people safety, driver assistance, among others. However, given the variety of problems and solutions, it is complex to identify research trends and gaps related to smart traffic field without a systematic review. This paper presents a systematic review of smart traffic in the context of VANETs. The paper selection was started with 1117 works followed with three processes of refinement wherein 115 papers were selected to thorough revision. The remaining 115 papers were cataloged and classified according to three criteria general focus, evaluation method, and communication type. The review revealed research gaps and trends in the area of smart traffic. This work provides a list of references to find the mapped papers, thus being able to guide more reliable research studies. Besides, we identify research challenges and directions based on the set of papers that were studied. The research challenges are presented according to the main topics explored in this systematic review: security, physical safety of people and protocols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]