Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network for Urban Spaces: Interpolating Citywide Traffic Volume

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Kaiser, Silke K., Rodrigues, Filipe, Azevedo, Carlos Lima, Kaack, Lynn H.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Kaiser, Silke K.
Rodrigues, Filipe
Azevedo, Carlos Lima
Kaack, Lynn H.
author_facet Kaiser, Silke K.
Rodrigues, Filipe
Azevedo, Carlos Lima
Kaack, Lynn H.
contents Graph Neural Networks have shown strong performance in traffic volume forecasting, particularly on highways and major arterial networks. Applying them to urban settings, however, presents unique challenges: urban networks exhibit greater structural diversity, traffic volumes are highly overdispersed with many zeros, the best way to account for spatial dependencies remains unclear, and sensor coverage is often very sparse. We introduce the Graph Neural Network for Urban Interpolation (GNNUI), a novel urban traffic volume estimation approach. GNNUI employs a masking algorithm to learn interpolation, integrates node features to capture functional roles, and uses a loss function tailored to zero-inflated traffic distributions. In addition to the model, we introduce two new open, large-scale urban traffic volume benchmarks, covering different transportation modes: Strava cycling data from Berlin and New York City taxi data. GNNUI outperforms recent, some graph-based, interpolation methods across metrics (MAE, RMSE, true-zero rate, Kullback-Leibler divergence) and remains robust from 90% to 1% sensor coverage. For example, on the Strava dataset, the MAE increases only from 7.1 to 10.5, and on the Taxi dataset, from 23.0 to 40.4. These results demonstrate that GNNUI maintains strong performance despite extreme data scarcity, a common condition in real-world urban settings. We also examine how graph connectivity choices influence model accuracy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_06292
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network for Urban Spaces: Interpolating Citywide Traffic Volume
Kaiser, Silke K.
Rodrigues, Filipe
Azevedo, Carlos Lima
Kaack, Lynn H.
Machine Learning
Computers and Society
Graph Neural Networks have shown strong performance in traffic volume forecasting, particularly on highways and major arterial networks. Applying them to urban settings, however, presents unique challenges: urban networks exhibit greater structural diversity, traffic volumes are highly overdispersed with many zeros, the best way to account for spatial dependencies remains unclear, and sensor coverage is often very sparse. We introduce the Graph Neural Network for Urban Interpolation (GNNUI), a novel urban traffic volume estimation approach. GNNUI employs a masking algorithm to learn interpolation, integrates node features to capture functional roles, and uses a loss function tailored to zero-inflated traffic distributions. In addition to the model, we introduce two new open, large-scale urban traffic volume benchmarks, covering different transportation modes: Strava cycling data from Berlin and New York City taxi data. GNNUI outperforms recent, some graph-based, interpolation methods across metrics (MAE, RMSE, true-zero rate, Kullback-Leibler divergence) and remains robust from 90% to 1% sensor coverage. For example, on the Strava dataset, the MAE increases only from 7.1 to 10.5, and on the Taxi dataset, from 23.0 to 40.4. These results demonstrate that GNNUI maintains strong performance despite extreme data scarcity, a common condition in real-world urban settings. We also examine how graph connectivity choices influence model accuracy.
title Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network for Urban Spaces: Interpolating Citywide Traffic Volume
topic Machine Learning
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.06292