A comprehensive systematic literature review on traffic flow prediction (TFP)

Nowadays, traffic congestion is becoming a severe problem for almost every urban area. It badly hampers the economic growth of a country because it has negative effects on productivity and business. Increasing populations and urbanization are the main reasons for traffic congestion in most cities. However, traffic prediction, forecasting, and modeling can help provide appropriate routes and times for traveling and can significantly impact traffic jam reduction. Currently, there is a lot of research being done on traffic flow analysis in all developed countries, and they are planning their future accordingly. The objective of this review paper is to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the traffic prediction literature, containing 98 papers published from 2010 to 2020. The papers are extracted from four well-known publishers and databases: Scopus, ScienceDirect, IEEE Xplore, and ACM. This article concentrates on the research approaches, directions, and gaps in traffic flow prediction. It also talks about current trends in predicting traffic flow and what might be taken into account in the future.