Traffic Prediction Using Multifaceted Techniques: A Survey

Road transportation is the largest and complex nonlinear entity of the traffic management system. Accurate prediction of traffic-related information is necessary for an effective functioning of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). It is still a challenge for the departments of transportation to choose an appropriate prediction technique for the ITS applications. That is, a user must be able to utilize the disseminated information effectively by the forecasting models. This paper provides a detailed survey of the latest forecasting technologies and contributes to understand the key concept behind the prediction approaches. To provide guidelines to the decision-maker, this paper reviews multifaceted techniques developed by various authors for traffic prediction. We start classifying each technique into four categories namely, Machine Learning (ML), Computational Intelligence (CI), Deep Learning (DL), and hybrid algorithms. Many have conducted survey using model-driven or data-driven methods. We are the first to explore the area of traffic prediction based on the advances in multifaceted techniques proposing algorithmic approaches for key traffic characteristics in the forecasting process. The role of dependent factors in the prediction are analyzed thoroughly. We have analyzed each algorithm chronologically based on various traffic traits. The approaches are summarized based on the rational usage and performance of each technique. The analysis led to several research queries, and the appropriate  responses are provided based on our detail survey. Finally, it is confirmed that currently, CI-MLs and DL hybrid techniques outperforms the rest in the field of traffic prediction. Ultimately suggested open challenges and future direction to explore the capability of DL and hybrid techniques further in the field of traffic prediction.