TrajRoute: Rethinking Routing with a Simple Trajectory-Based Approach -- Forget the Maps and Traffic!

TL;DR

TrajRoute introduces a trajectory-based routing method that leverages raw vehicle trajectory data to compute efficient, real-world routes without relying on traditional road network graphs, reducing maintenance costs.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel trajectory-based routing paradigm that directly uses raw trajectory data and road network information, bypassing complex graph construction and updates.

Findings

TrajRoute improves route accuracy with more trajectory data.

The method reduces reliance on traditional road network graphs.

It offers a lower-maintenance alternative to existing routing systems.

Abstract

The abundance of vehicle trajectory data offers a new opportunity to compute driving routes between origins and destinations. Current graph-based routing pipelines, while effective, involve substantial costs in constructing, maintaining, and updating road network graphs to reflect real-time conditions. In this study, we propose a new trajectory-based routing paradigm that bypasses current workflows by directly utilizing raw trajectory data to compute efficient routes. Our method, named TrajRoute, uniquely "follows" historical trajectories from a source to a destination, constructing paths that reflect actual driver behavior and implicit preferences. To supplement areas with sparse trajectory data, the road network is also incorporated into TrajRoute's index, and tunable parameters are introduced to control the balance between road segments and trajectories, ensuring a unified and adaptable routing approach. We experimentally verify our approach by comparing it to an existing online routing service. Our results demonstrate that as the number of trajectories covering the road network increases, TrajRoute produces increasingly accurate travel time and route length estimates while gradually eliminating the need to downgrade to the road network. This highlights the potential of simpler, data-driven pipelines for routing, offering lower-maintenance alternatives to conventional systems.