Graph Neural Networks and Open-Government Data to Forecast Traffic Flow

Abstract

Traffic forecasting has been an important area of research for several decades, with significant implications for urban traffic planning, management, and control. In recent years, deep-learning models, such as graph neural networks (GNN), have shown great promise in traffic forecasting due to their ability to capture complex spatio–temporal dependencies within traffic networks. Additionally, public authorities around the world have started providing real-time traffic data as open-government data (OGD). This large volume of dynamic and high-value data can open new avenues for creating innovative algorithms, services, and applications. In this paper, we investigate the use of traffic OGD with advanced deep-learning algorithms. Specifically, we deploy two GNN models—the Temporal Graph Convolutional Network and Diffusion Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network—to predict traffic flow based on real-time traffic OGD. Our evaluation of the forecasting models shows that both GNN models outperform the two baseline models—Historical Average and Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average—in terms of prediction performance. We anticipate that the exploitation of OGD in deep-learning scenarios will contribute to the development of more robust and reliable traffic-forecasting algorithms, as well as provide innovative and efficient public services for citizens and businesses.