A rich portfolio of services (e.g., road traffic information, maps download, Internet/cloud access) will be delivered to users on wheels through Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs).Most of them will be offered by road-side units (RSUs) sparsely deployed along the roads. The prompt access to such services by passing by vehicles highly relies on the efficiency of service announcement procedures performed by the RSUs. In this paper, we present an analytical framework that models the service discovery and access mechanisms in multi-channel vehicular networks. The model accounts for dual-radio devices under different channel configurations for the delivery of announcements (e.g., on the control channel, on a service channel) and related switching mechanisms. Guidelines are suggested for the setting of service announcements parameters and channel configuration to allow providers to boost service provisioning. © 2016 IEEE.