Encoding network-constrained travel trajectories using routing algorithms

This study proposes a generic encoder for network-constrained travel trajectories, and it implements two encoders by combining the proposed generic encoder with two routing algorithms, which reduce the size of a travel trajectory's path along a road network without modifying it. Although most previous trajectory compression methods introduce an error in the spatial component of trajectories to achieve compression, we argue that the path of a travel trajectory, i.e. the sequence of roads travelled, is crucial information for many applications. Experimental results obtained using a large-data set of real travel trajectories show that the two proposed encoders achieve high compression, outperforming a general purpose data compression method.