The prediction of journey times on motorways using genetic programming

Considered is the problem of reliably predicting motorway journey times for the purpose of providing accurate information to drivers. This proof of concept experiment investigates: (a) the practicalities of using a Genetic Programming (GP) method to model/forecast motorway journey times; and (b) different ways of obtaining a journey time predictor. Predictions are compared with known times and are also judged against a collection of naive prediction formulae. A journey time formula discovered by GP is analysed to determine its structure, demonstrating that GP can indeed discover compact formulae for different traffic situations and associated insights. GP's felxibility allows it to self-determine the required level of modelling complexity.