Modeling vehicular mobility patterns using recurrent neural networks

Data on vehicular mobility patterns have proved useful in many contexts. Yet generative models which accurately reproduce these mobility patterns are scarce. Here, we explore if recurrent neural networks can cure this scarcity. By training networks on taxi from NYC and Shanghai, and personal cars from Michigan, we show most aspects of the mobility patterns can be reproduced. In particular, the spatial distributions of the street segments usage is well captured by the recurrent neural networks, which other models struggle to do.