Short-term traffic flow prediction using a methodology based on autoregressive integrated moving average and genetic programming

Abstract

The accurate short-term traffic flow forecasting is fundamental to both theoretical and empirical aspects of intelligent transportation systems deployment. This study aimed to develop a simple and effective hybrid model for forecasting traffic volume that combines the AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and the Genetic Programming (GP) models. By combining different models, different aspects of the underlying patterns of traffic flow could be captured. The ARIMA model was used to model the linear component of the traffic flow time series. Then the GP model was applied to capture the nonlinear component by modelling the residuals from the ARIMA model. The hybrid models were fitted for four different time-aggregations: 5, 10, 15, and 20 min. The validations of the proposed hybrid methodology were performed by using traffic data under both typical and atypical conditions from multiple locations on the I-880N freeway in the United States. The results indicated that the hybrid models had better predictive performance than utilizing only ARIMA model for different aggregation time intervals under typical conditions. The Mean Relative Error (MRE) of the hybrid models was found to be from 4.1 to 6.9% for different aggregation time intervals under typical conditions. The predictive performance of the hybrid method was improved with an increase in the aggregation time interval. In addition, the validation results showed that the predictive performance of the hybrid model was also better than that of the ARIMA model under atypical conditions.