Anomalous Trajectory Detection Using Masked Autoregressive Flow Considering Route Choice Probability

Taxis play a critical role in public traffic systems, and they deliver myriad travelers with convenient service due to temporal-spatial availability. However, anomalous trajectories such as trip fraud often occur due to greedy drivers. In this study, we propose an anomalous trajectory detection method that incorporates Route Choice analysis into Masked Autoregressive Flow, named MAFRC-ATD. The MAFRC-ATD integrates data-driven and model-based methods. First, we divide the urban traffic network into small grids and represent subtrajectories with a sequence of grids. Second, based on the subtrajectories, we employ the MAFRC-ATD model to calculate the anomaly score of each trajectory. Third, according to the anomaly score, we can identify the anomalous trajectories and distinguish between intentionally and unintentionally anomalous. Finally, we evaluate our method with a real-world dataset in Porto, Portugal. The experiment demonstrates that the MAFRC-ATD can effectively discover anomalous trajectories and can identify the unintentional detours due to traffic congestion.

Automated summary

Taxis are important in public transportation, but anomalies such as trip fraud can occur due to greedy drivers. This study proposes an anomalous trajectory detection method that combines route choice analysis and masked autoregressive flow, which effectively discovers anomalies and distinguishes intentional and unintentional ones.