Traffic flow data are needed for traffic management and control applications as well as for transportation planning issues. Such data are usually collected from traffic sensors; however, it is not practical or even feasible to deploy traffic sensors on all of a network’s links. Instead, it is necessary to extend the information acquired from a subset of link flows to estimate the entire network’s traffic flow. To this end, this study proposes a robust deep learning architecture based on a stacked sparse autoencoders (SAEs) model for a precise estimation of the whole network’s traffic flow with an already-deployed sensor set. The proposed deep learning architecture has two consequent components: a deep learning model based on the SAEs and a fully connected layer. First, the SAEs model is used to extract traffic flow features and reach a meaningful pattern of the relation between the traffic flow data and network structure. Subsequently, the fully connected layer is used for the traffic flow estimation. Then, the whole architecture is fine-tuned to update its parameters in order to enhance the traffic flow estimation. For training the proposed deep learning architecture, synthetic link flow data are randomly generated from the network’s prior demand information. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated then validated using two real networks. A third medium real-size network is used to measure the robustness of applying the proposed methodology to this specific problem of traffic flow estimation.
Research Member
Research Department
Research Date
Research Year
2020
Research Journal
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Research Publisher
American Society of Civil Engineers
Research Vol
146
Research Rank
International Journal
Research Website
https://doi.org/10.1061/JTEPBS.0000290
Research Abstract
Research Rank
International Journal