Traffic Data Collection and Visualization Tool for Knowledge Discovery Using Google Maps

With the exponential increase in the urban population, urban transportation systems are confronted with numerous challenges. Traffic congestion is common, traffic accidents happen frequently, and traffic environments are deteriorating. To alleviate these issues and improve the efficiency of urban transportation, accurate traffic forecasting is crucial. In this study, we aim to provide a comprehensive overview of the overall architecture of traffic forecasting, covering aspects such as traffic data analysis, traffic data modeling, and traffic forecasting applications. We begin by introducing existing traffic forecasting surveys and preliminaries. Next, we delve into traffic data analysis from traffic data collection, traffic data formats, and traffic data characteristics. Additionally, we summarize traffic data modeling from spatial representation, temporal representation, and spatio-temporal representation. Furthermore, we discuss the application of traffic forecasting, including traffic flow forecasting, traffic speed forecasting, traffic demand forecasting, and other hybrid traffic forecasting. To support future research in this field, we also provide information on open datasets, source resources, challenges, and potential research directions. As far as we know, this paper represents the first comprehensive survey that focuses specifically on the overall architecture of traffic forecasting.

Due to the limited amount of sensor infrastructure and its distribution restrictions, it is a challenge for the traffic related groups to estimate traffic conditions. The GPS log files of floating cars have fundamentally improved the quantity and quality of wide-range traffic data collection. To convert this data into useful traffic information, new traffic models and data processing algorithms must be developed. To conduct a comprehensive and accurate traffic flow analysis, this paper proposes a traffic flow analysis and prediction process based on GPS data of floating cars. For the key links involved in the process, new models and algorithms are implemented. Based on the actual data of a city, we validate the effectiveness of the design process, and provide a reliable solution for urban traffic flow analysis.

PurposeThe study aims to propose an intelligent real-time traffic model to address the traffic congestion problem. The proposed model assists the urban population in their everyday lives by assessing the probability of road accidents and accurate traffic information prediction. It also helps in reducing overall carbon dioxide emissions in the environment and assists the urban population in their everyday lives by increasing overall transportation quality.Design/methodology/approachThis study offered a real-time traffic model based on the analysis of numerous sensor data. Real-time traffic prediction systems can identify and visualize current traffic conditions on a particular lane. The proposed model incorporated data from road sensors as well as a variety of other sources. It is difficult to capture and process large amounts of sensor data in real time. Sensor data is consumed by streaming analytics platforms that use big data technologies, which is then processed using a range of deep learning and machine learning techniques.FindingsThe study provided in this paper would fill a gap in the data analytics sector by delivering a more accurate and trustworthy model that uses internet of things sensor data and other data sources. This method can also assist organizations such as transit agencies and public safety departments in making strategic decisions by incorporating it into their platforms.Research limitations/implicationsThe model has a big flaw in that it makes predictions for the period following January 2020 that are not particularly accurate. This, however, is not a flaw in the model; rather, it is a flaw in Covid-19, the global epidemic. The global pandemic has impacted the traffic scenario, resulting in erratic data for the period after February 2020. However, once the circumstance returns to normal, the authors are confident in their model’s ability to produce accurate forecasts.Practical implicationsTo help users choose when to go, this study intended to pinpoint the causes of traffic congestion on the highways in the Bay Area as well as forecast real-time traffic speeds. To determine the best attributes that influence traffic speed in this study, the authors obtained data from the Caltrans performance measurement system (PeMS), reviewed it and used multiple models. The authors developed a model that can forecast traffic speed while accounting for outside variables like weather and incident data, with decent accuracy and generalizability. To assist users in determining traffic congestion at a certain location on a specific day, the forecast method uses a graphical user interface. This user interface has been designed to be readily expanded in the future as the project’s scope and usefulness increase. The authors’ Web-based traffic speed prediction platform is useful for both municipal planners and individual travellers. The authors were able to get excellent results by using five years of data (2015–2019) to train the models and forecast outcomes for 2020 data. The authors’ algorithm produced highly accurate predictions when tested using data from January 2020. The benefits of this model include accurate traffic speed forecasts for California’s four main freeways (Freeway 101, I-680, 880 and 280) for a specific place on a certain date. The scalable model performs better than the vast majority of earlier models created by other scholars in the field. The government would benefit from better planning and execution of new transportation projects if this programme were to be extended across the entire state of California. This initiative could be expanded to include the full state of California, assisting the government in better planning and implementing new transportation projects.Social implicationsTo estimate traffic congestion, the proposed model takes into account a variety of data sources, including weather and incident data. According to traffic congestion statistics, “bottlenecks” account for 40% of traffic congestion, “traffic incidents” account for 25% and “work zones” account for 10% (Traffic Congestion Statistics). As a result, incident data must be considered for analysis. The study uses traffic, weather and event data from the previous five years to estimate traffic congestion in any given area. As a result, the results predicted by the proposed model would be more accurate, and commuters who need to schedule ahead of time for work would benefit greatly.Originality/valueThe proposed work allows the user to choose the optimum time and mode of transportation for them. The underlying idea behind this model is that if a car spends more time on the road, it will cause traffic congestion. The proposed system encourages users to arrive at their location in a short period of time. Congestion is an indicator that public transportation needs to be expanded. The optimum route is compared to other kinds of public transit using this methodology (Greenfield, 2014). If the commute time is comparable to that of private car transportation during peak hours, consumers should take public transportation.

The intelligent transportation system seeks to reduce traffic and improve the driving experience. They give us a lot of data that we can use to improve services for both the public and transportation officials by feeding it into machine learning systems. Most importantly, Traffic environment refers to everything that might have an impact on how much traffic is moving down the road, including traffic signals, accidents, protests, and even road repairs that might result in a backup. A motorist or rider can make an informed choice if they have previous knowledge that is very close to approximate all the above and many more real-world circumstances that can affect traffic. Additionally, it aids in the development of driverless vehicles. Traffic data have been growing dramatically in recent decades, and we are moving toward big data concepts for transportation. The current approaches for predicting traffic flow use some traffic prediction models, however they are still inadequate to handle practical situations. We thus aimed to focus on the traffic flow forecast problem using the traffic data and prediction models. The proposed model called DRGNN, a dilated recurrent graph neural network framework aims to effectively analyze and predict the traffic pattern by considering the spatial (space) and temporal (time) aspects of the real-time traffic data considering social relationships between internet of vehicles which indeed produced accurate and valuable insights that could help in deploying the model in any suitable real-time traffic monitoring and prediction system.

The increasing complexity of urban transportation systems and the growing volume of vehicles have made traffic congestion a persistent challenge in modern cities. Efficient traffic flow prediction is essential for mitigating congestion, improving road safety, optimizing traffic signal control, and enhancing overall transportation efficiency. In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative tool in the field of traffic management, offering sophisticated algorithms capable of modeling, analyzing, and predicting complex traffic patterns with high accuracy. The application of AI in traffic flow prediction leverages vast amounts of real-time and historical data to generate precise forecasts, supporting data-driven decision-making by urban planners and traffic control authorities. The prediction of traffic flow involves analyzing time-series data that exhibit nonlinear, dynamic, and often stochastic behavior. Traditional statistical models, such as autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA), have proven to be limited in handling the high dimensionality and variability inherent in traffic systems. In contrast, AI algorithms possess the capacity to learn and adapt from complex data inputs without the need for explicit programming, making them particularly suitable for traffic-related applications. AI algorithms used in traffic flow prediction can be broadly categorized into machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) approaches. Machine learning algorithms such as k-nearest neighbors (KNN), support vector machines (SVM), decision trees, and random forests have demonstrated effectiveness in short-term traffic prediction tasks. These algorithms are capable of identifying hidden patterns in traffic data and adjusting to changes in traffic behavior over time. Ensemble methods, which combine the strengths of multiple learning models, further enhance prediction accuracy and robustness. Deep learning algorithms, a subfield of AI inspired by the human brain’s neural architecture, have shown exceptional performance in capturing spatial-temporal dependencies in traffic data. Recurrent neural networks (RNNs), particularly long short-term memory (LSTM) networks and gated recurrent units (GRUs), are widely used for their ability to process sequential data and retain information over extended time intervals. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are employed to extract spatial features from traffic sensor data or road network imagery. Hybrid models that integrate CNNs with RNNs have achieved high levels of predictive precision by simultaneously learning spatial and temporal correlations. In addition to supervised learning methods, unsupervised and reinforcement learning techniques are also applied in traffic flow prediction. Clustering algorithms, such as k-means and DBSCAN, assist in identifying traffic patterns, while reinforcement learning models optimize adaptive traffic signal control systems by learning optimal actions through environmental interaction. This study explores the different types of AI algorithms used in traffic flow prediction, examining their theoretical foundations, structural differences, and practical applications. It aims to evaluate the comparative advantages of various algorithms in addressing the challenges of real-time traffic prediction in increasingly complex transportation networks.

The recent intelligent transportation system has yielded remarkable progress on traffic data collection, resource allocation and intelligent programming. However, development on traffic real-time data processing and prediction still remains limited. In pursuit of real-time prediction on road section average speed, we introduced a prediction method, which mines GIS floating car data with support vector regression algorithm. The result indicated our proposed method was superior in comparison with other commonly used algorithms including linear regression, artificial neural network, Bayesian regression and ridge regression. Besides, the quick convergence and well fitting confirmed the plausibility of our method in this domain.

Highway congestion has become a normal social problem that needs to be managed more accurately and deeply. In this paper, a traffic flow congestion prediction model is established based on LSTM, and the traffic parameters obtained from four observation points of China's long and deep high-speed video are used for training, so as to provide real-time early warning before the continuous congestion of the road section between the third and fourth points. The results show that the model constructed in this paper can reach 89.25% accuracy after predicting 400 times steps in 50 times Windows. After further evaluation of the constructed traffic flow congestion prediction model, it is found that the mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and R2 is 0.0897, <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$0.2334,0.6028$</tex>, respectively, revealing that the model can well predict the future traffic congestion.

Traffic data is the data foundation for smart transportation construction. However, due to inclement weather and equipment damage, there are often data missing during the collection of traffic data, which severely restricts smart transportation construction progress. Therefore, traffic data recovery has become an urgent problem in the field of intelligent transportation. Aiming at the problem that the recovery accuracy of existing traffic data recovery methods declines sharply under extreme missing conditions, this paper proposes a traffic data recovery model based on tensor filling and tensor matrix association analysis. The experimental results combined with real taxi GPS positioning data and point of interesting (POI) data of Kunming show that the traffic data recovery model proposed in this paper can significantly improve the recovery accuracy of missing data and maintain good stability in the case of extreme data missing.

Traffic flow prediction is an essential part of intelligent transportation systems (ITS), facilitating dynamic traffic control, congestion alleviation, and route planning. The past few years have seen the booming of Graph Neural Networks (GNNs), providing a strong tool to capture the sophisticated spatial compositions and dynamic temporal patterns inherent in urban road networks. In this paper, I provide a systematic and comprehensive review of GNN-based solutions for short-term traffic prediction. I first briefly review the basic concepts and categorization of GNNs, then elaborate on representative models such as spatial and spectral convolutional networks, temporal graph structures, and hybrid models with attention mechanisms and recurrent units. Besides, I recap typical traffic datasets and evaluation metrics, compare the performance of different models from multiple aspects, and highlight key technical challenges such as spatiotemporal heterogeneity, scalability, and interpretability. Finally, I suggest future research lines to improve the accuracy, efficiency, and robustness of GNN-based traffic prediction models for real-world ITS applications.

Nowadays, congestion and accidents are creating major risks to cities, including delays, higher fuel usage, and compromised safety. Effective traffic modelling and accident data analysis are critical for identifying high risk identifying accident-prone locations, understanding the causes of accidents and creating focused actions to enhance traffic flow and safety. GIS is an effective tool for integrating, analysing and visualizing different geographical data relevant to transportation networks such as, traffic flow, infrastructure, and safety. It enables geographical analysis and visualization of accident hotspots by integrating accident data, road conditions, traffic numbers, and environmental factors. The use of GIS in traffic modelling and accident data analysis provides considerable benefits in urban transportation planning and management. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview of the application of GIS in traffic modelling and accidental data analysis, highlighting the methodologies, advancements, and challenges in this field. The review shall provide a comprehensive assessment of the current state of traffic modelling and accidental data analysis using GIS. It will highlight the significant contributions of GIS technology, identify key research gaps, and offer insights into future directions for enhancing transportation planning and decision-making processes.

Information metrics for improved traffic model fidelity through sensitivity analysis and data assimilation

With the rapid growth of transportation, all kinds of traffic data show explosive growth, and accurate and timely traffic forecasting is also particularly important. Among them, traffic flow prediction is the basis for realizing reasonable traffic guidance and control, and it is also a prerequisite for intelligent transportation. Traffic flow data belongs to a typical chaotic time series with strong non-linearity. In the application of neural network, a two-layer neural network can theoretically approach any continuous function infinitely, so as to achieve very accurate prediction. This paper proposes a predictive traffic flow model based on the combination of GRU network and BP neural network, and uses the US Twin Cities traffic data experiment to verify that the model is feasible in traffic flow prediction. The experimental results show that the combined model has high prediction accuracy and can capture the volatility of traffic flow at rush hour. At the same time, the model has strong robustness.

Fast and accurate traffic load prediction is a pivotal component of the Intelligent Transport System. It will reduce time spent by commuters and save our environment from vehicle emissions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people prefer to use private transportation; thus predicting the traffic load becomes more critical. In these years, researchers have developed some traffic load prediction models and have applied these models successfully on data from the US, China or Europe. However, none of these models has been applied to traffic data in Australia. Considering that Australia bears different political, geographical, and climate conditions from other countries, these models may not be suitable to predict the traffic load in Australia. In this paper, we investigate this problem and proposes a multi-modal method that is capable of using Australia-specific data to assist traffic load prediction. Specifically, we use daily social media data together with traffic data to predict the traffic load. We illustrate a protocol to pre-process raw traffic and social media data and then propose a multi-modal model, namely DM2T, which accurately make time-series prediction by using both time-series data and other media data. We validate the effectiveness of our proposed method by a case study on Brisbane city. The result shows that with the help of Australia-specific social media data, our proposed method can make more accurate traffic load prediction for Brisbane than conventional methods.KeywordsTraffic load predictionDeep learningNatural Language Processing (NLP)

Traffic data are the fundamental inputs to traffic flow analysis and simulation studies, which facilitate decision making in the fi eld of traffic engineering. Hence, the accuracy of traffic data is of paramount importance. This study compares new technologies available for traffic data collection considering their accuracy and applicability in the Sri Lankan context. Traffic in Sri Lanka is of heterogeneous nature, as opposed to the homogeneous nature observed in most developed countries. Hence, collection of traffic data poses several challenges that affects its accuracy. Three techniques, the infrared driven TIRTL instrument, the video image processing-based TRAZER application and the traffic data collection method using the Google distance matrix application programming interface (API), with respect to their data collection accuracy are reviewed in this study. The fundamental macroscopic traffic data variables (fl ow and speed) were evaluated against control surveys. It was found that each technology has its strengths and weaknesses and needs to be used appropriately. The TIRTL instrument fared better on road sections on level terrain when the crossfall did not obstruct the infrared beams. Such occasions provided a rich set of microscopic traffic data. The TRAZER software delivered data up to a 100 % accuracy. However, this required the user to go through a lengthy postprocessing routine to extract the final set of traffic data. Google traffic data collection provides highly accurate results when estimating link speeds. This method is ideal for collection of bulk data with spatio-temporal variations and the process can be fully automated to reduce the human resource requirement.

For providing drivers with robust traffic information and Optimizing the energy management of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), it is important to predict traffic information accurately with past traffic information. As acquisition of the traffic information have been easier by the development of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), active study on traffic prediction is currently underway. Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) model have been widely utilized for predicting traffic information since it is appropriate to represent the non-linear characteristics inherent in traffic prediction. However, the MLP model doesn't reflect local dependencies of traffic data and is prone to noise in traffic data. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) based model, on the other hand, can capture the local dependencies of traffic data and is less prone to disturbance in data. In this paper, we use temporal data and speed data collected on main roads in Seoul, South Korea to construct traffic prediction models. The speed data which are collected by every 5 minutes are provided by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in South Korea. We construct the CNN based model and two MLP models which predict traffic speed and compare performance of the prediction models in this paper. The comparison results show that the CNN based model's prediction performance is higher than the prediction performance of the other two MLP models.