Intelligent transportation systems have received extensive attention in recent years by dealing with the complex relationships between vehicles, roads, pedestrians and other objects. Vehicle ad hoc networks (VANET) play an important role in intelligent transportation systems because they can provide accurate status data for all participants in real time, especially with the rise of autonomous vehicles and 5G communications. Vehicle ad hoc network is a new autonomous dynamic topology network, a special sub-category of mobile ad hoc network (MANET), it can enhance road safety and improve traffic efficiency by providing information about traffic flow, accident notification, danger warning, possible deviation or weather. Considering the mobility of road traffic, these networks have aroused widespread concern in academia and industry because of their potential to improve road safety and provide convenience for drivers and passengers. Due to the high-speed movement of vehicles in the vehicle ad hoc network, the network topology is frequently interrupted. Therefore, a well-designed routing protocol is essential. After a lot of literature research and analysis, we have concluded that the routing protocol based on clustering is suitable for the vehicle ad hoc network environment. Therefore, this paper proposes a routing protocol based on clustering. A clustering networking model based on affinity propagation algorithm is proposed. By reconstructing the similarity function of the affinity propagation algorithm, the cluster head selection process, cluster formation process and cluster maintenance process are designed. The formed cluster performs better in terms of stability and communication performance within the cluster. This protocol performs well in terms of routing delay and packet forwarding success rate.