Traffic Stream Short-term State Prediction using Machine Learning Techniques

: The paper addresses the problem of stretch wide short-term prediction of traffic stream state. The problem is a multivariate problem where the responses are the speeds or flows on different road segments at different time horizons. Recognizing that short-term traffic state prediction is a multivariate problem, there is a need to maintain the spatiotemporal traffic state correlations. Two cutting-edge machine learning algorithms are used to predict the stretch-wide traffic stream traffic state up to 120 minutes in the future. Furthermore, the divide and conquer approach was used to divide the large prediction problem into a set of smaller overlapping problems. These smaller problems are solved using a medium configuration PC in a reasonable time (less than a minute), which makes the proposed technique suitable for practical applications.