Informed along the road: roadway capacity driven graph convolution network for network-wide traffic prediction

TL;DR

This paper presents RCDGCN, a novel graph neural network model that incorporates roadway capacity factors to improve network-wide traffic prediction accuracy, validated on real-world datasets from highway and urban networks.

Contribution

The study introduces RCDGCN, integrating static and dynamic capacity attributes into graph convolution networks for enhanced traffic forecasting.

Findings

RCDGCN outperforms baseline models in accuracy.

Capacity factors significantly influence traffic predictions.

Model analysis confirms the importance of capacity-related features.

Abstract

While deep learning has shown success in predicting traffic states, most methods treat it as a general prediction task without considering transportation aspects. Recently, graph neural networks have proven effective for this task, but few incorporate external factors that impact roadway capacity and traffic flow. This study introduces the Roadway Capacity Driven Graph Convolution Network (RCDGCN) model, which incorporates static and dynamic roadway capacity attributes in spatio-temporal settings to predict network-wide traffic states. The model was evaluated on two real-world datasets with different transportation factors: the ICM-495 highway network and an urban network in Manhattan, New York City. Results show RCDGCN outperformed baseline methods in forecasting accuracy. Analyses, including ablation experiments, weight analysis, and case studies, investigated the effect of capacity-related factors. The study demonstrates the potential of using RCDGCN for transportation system management.