An Approach to Dynamical Classification of Daily Traffic Patterns

This article proposes a prototype of an urban traffic control system based on a prediction‐after‐classification approach. In an off‐line phase, a repository of traffic control strategies for a set of (dynamic) traffic patterns is constructed. The core of this stage is the k‐means algorithm for daily traffic pattern identification. The clustering method uses the input attributes flow, speed, and occupancy and it transforms the dynamic traffic data at network level in a pseudo‐covariance matrix, which collects the dynamic correlations between the road links. A desirable number of traffic patterns is provided by Bayesian Information Criterion and the ratio of change in dispersion measurements. In an on‐line phase, the current daily traffic pattern is predicted within the repository and its associated control strategy is implemented in the traffic network. The dynamic prediction scheme is constructed on the basis of an existing static prediction method by accumulating the trials on set of patterns in the repository. This proposal has been assessed in synthetic and real networks testing its effectiveness as a data mining tool for the analysis of traffic patterns. The approach promises to effectively detect the current daily traffic pattern and is open to being used in intelligent traffic management systems.