Reconstructing Movement from Sparse Samples: Enhanced Spatio-Temporal Matching Strategies for Low-Frequency Data

TL;DR

This paper improves a GPS trajectory matching algorithm by introducing four modifications to enhance efficiency and accuracy in dense urban environments with sparse data, validated through real-world Milan data.

Contribution

It proposes four novel modifications to the existing Spatial-Temporal Matching algorithm to improve performance and accuracy in low-frequency GPS data alignment.

Findings

Significant improvements in computational efficiency.

Enhanced path quality in trajectory matching.

Effective in dense urban environments.

Abstract

This paper explores potential improvements to the Spatial-Temporal Matching algorithm for aligning the GPS trajectories to road networks. While this algorithm is effective, it presents some limitations in computational efficiency and the accuracy of the results, especially in dense environments with relatively high sampling intervals. To address this, the paper proposes four modifications to the original algorithm: a dynamic buffer, an adaptive observation probability, a redesigned temporal scoring function, and a behavioral analysis to account for the historical mobility patterns. The enhancements are assessed using real-world data from the urban area of Milan, and through newly defined evaluation metrics to be applied in the absence of ground truth. The results of the experiment show significant improvements in performance efficiency and path quality across various metrics.